Challenging the Status Quo with a Walk around a Philadelphia Block

What kind of response do you think you would get if you walked through your neighborhood, asking everyone you met about their health? What do your neighbors worry about most? What would they describe as the biggest health challenge for local families? Is anything actually working to promote health in the community?  Would the responses be the same across town, or across the country?

Doctors, community health experts, social scientists and politicians all have their own tools to collect and measure data on the health and well being of society.  What they find impacts crucial budget and health policy decisions. Carolyn Cannuscio, a social epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, thought there was something missing in her studies. So she, along with co-principal investigator, David Asch and strategic director, Eve Weiss, decided to put the usual tools away and take a walk around the block, so to speak, with the support of a camera-wielding interview team.

Here's a glimpse of what they found in neighborhoods all across Philadelphia, a grand old American city that has suffered a poor reputation for crime, poverty and obesity.

[video:http://youtu.be/Utb-Kfs3HSE]