The Brain Architects Podcast: A Cascade of Impacts: A Discussion on the Ways Water Affects Early Childhood Health & Well-being
In October 2024, we hosted a webinar where we explored the science from our latest working paper, A Cascade of Impacts: The Many Ways Water Affects Child Development. The discussion was led by the Center’s Chief Science Officer, Lindsey Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAP, and featured Devon Payne-Sturges, DrPH, Associate Professor with the Department of Global, Environmental, and Occupational Health at the University of Maryland, School of Public Health, and Nathaniel Harnett, PhD, Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. In this podcast, learn about the many ways water affects early childhood health and well-being as well as actionable strategies and policy solutions that can support clean water access for all children and their caregivers. The webinar discussion has been adapted for this episode of the Brain Architects podcast.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Extreme Heat & Early Childhood Development: A Discussion on Rising Temperatures and Strategies for Supporting Development and Lifelong Health
In April 2024, we hosted a webinar where we explored the science from our latest working paper, Extreme Heat Affects Early Childhood Development and Health. The Center’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Lindsey Burghardt, joined by Dr. Kari Nadeau, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, brought the latest research and insights from the field to discuss the intersection of heat, early childhood development, and health equity. They also discussed actionable solutions to benefit children, caregivers, and communities now and in the future. The webinar discussion has been adapted for this episode of the Brain Architects podcast.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: A Place to Play: Moving Towards Fairness of Place for All Children
In March 2024, we continued our Place Matters webinar series with our third installment: “A Place to Play: Moving Towards Fairness of Place for All Children.” During the webinar, we explored the power of play in supporting early childhood development, as well as the importance of ensuring that children and caregivers have access to safe green spaces, like parks and playgrounds. Our panel of experts discussed how access to safe, stimulating, and joyful play space is not equally distributed across communities, along with strategies to work toward building a future where all children have a safe place to play. The webinar discussion has been adapted for this episode of the Brain Architects podcast.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Understanding Racism’s Impact on Child Development – Working Toward Fairness of Place in the United States
This episode of the Brain Architects podcast features a discussion from a webinar we hosted earlier in December 2023 on the impact of racism on child development and lifelong health.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: A New Lens on Poverty – Working Towards Fairness of Place in the United States
This episode of the Brain Architects podcast features the work of Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, FAAP, whose research uncovered the water crisis in Flint, H. Luke Shaefer, PhD, co-author of the new book The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America and their groundbreaking new program, RxKids, an innovative effort to address child poverty and improve health equity. This conversation, moderated by our Chief Science Officer, Lindsey Burghardt, MD, MPH, FAAP, has been adapted from a webinar we held in late 2023.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Place Matters
This episode of the Brain Architects podcast features a discussion from a webinar we hosted earlier in the year about our latest Working Paper, Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development, which examines how a wide range of conditions in the places where children live, grow, play, and learn can shape how children develop.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: IDEAS Impact Framework Toolkit
This episode of the Brain Architects podcast features highlights from a webinar we hosted earlier in the year about the recently released IDEAS Impact Framework Toolkit—a free online resource designed to help innovators in the field of early childhood build improved programs and products that are positioned to achieve greater impact in their communities.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Building Resilience Through Play
These days, resilience is needed more than ever, and one simple, underrecognized way of supporting healthy and resilient child development is as old as humanity itself: play.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Mental Health Vital Signs
The devastating toll of the pandemic has underscored the critical importance of connecting what science is telling us to the lived experiences of people and communities.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Building from Strengths: Post-Pandemic Partnerships in Health Care
Dr. Renée Boynton-Jarrett, founding Director of Vital Village Networks at Boston Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, discusses the cost of failing to address structural inequities with sustainable and comprehensive policy changes, the vital role community leaders played during the pandemic, and why health care systems need to demonstrate trustworthiness.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Superheroes of Pediatric Care: Moving Beyond the Challenges of COVID-19
The devastating toll of the pandemic has underscored the critical importance of connecting what science is telling us to the lived experiences of people and communities.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: How Do We Rebuild and Re-Envision Early Childhood Services?
The devastating toll of the pandemic has underscored the critical importance of connecting what science is telling us to the lived experiences of people and communities.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Connecting Health & Learning Part II: The Implications
How do we use the science of early childhood development to implement practical strategies and overcome longstanding barriers in the early childhood field? How can we ensure that families’ voices are heard when we create policies or programs?
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Connecting Health & Learning Part I: The Science
How do our biological systems work together to respond to chronic stress? What do these responses mean for early learning and lifelong health? And when we say that early experiences matter, what do we mean by early?
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Mental Health in a Locked-Down World
This episode of The Brain Architects addresses mental health amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including what supporting your own mental health can look like, as well as ways to support children you care for at this time.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Domestic Violence and Shelter-In-Place
Shelter-in-place orders are meant to help protect our communities from the current coronavirus pandemic. But for some people, home isn’t always a safe place. Dr. Tien Ung discusses what options are available to help people stay both physically healthy and safe from violence.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Creating Communities of Opportunity
While the current coronavirus pandemic is affecting all of us, it isn’t affecting all of us equally. In this episode, Dr. David Williams discusses ways in which the coronavirus pandemic is particularly affecting people of color in the U.S., and what that can mean for early childhood development.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: Self-Care Isn’t Selfish
In the second episode, Dr. Rahil Briggs, National Director of ZERO TO THREE’s HealthySteps program, discusses the current state of pediatrics, and why caregiver health is child health.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: COVID-19 Special Edition: A Different World
While the coronavirus pandemic has changed many things around the world, it has not stopped child development.
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Serve and Return: Supporting the Foundation
What is “serve and return”? What does it mean to have a “responsive relationship” with a child? How do responsive relationships support healthy brain development? And what can parents and caregivers do in their day-to-day lives to build these sorts of relationships? This episode of The Brain Architects podcast addresses all these questions and more! […]
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Toxic Stress: Protecting the Foundation
What is toxic stress? What effects can it have on a child’s body and development, and how can those effects be prevented? What does it mean to build resilience? This episode of The Brain Architects explores what “toxic stress” means, and what we can do about it. Host Sally Pfitzer is once again joined by […]
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The Brain Architects Podcast: Brain Architecture: Laying the Foundation
Why are the early years of a child’s life so important for brain development? How are connections built in the brain, and how can early brain development affect a child’s future health? This episode of The Brain Architects dives into all these questions and more. First, Dr. Jack Shonkoff, director of the Center on the […]
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About The Brain Architects Podcast
Healthy development in the early years provides the building blocks for educational achievement, economic productivity, responsible citizenship, strong communities, and successful parenting of the next generation. By improving children’s environments, relationships, and experiences early in life, society can address many costly problems, including incarceration, homelessness, and the failure to complete high school. But if you’re […]