by Johnesha Harris
The Common Table Health Alliance held its 9th Annual Board Meeting & Awards Program Tuesday afternoon at the Racquet Club of Memphis. Reggie Crenshaw, the group’s board chairman, detailed the alliance’s community purpose.
“Common Table Health Alliance has a background in convening, doing direct services and really focusing a lot on collaborations. It’s all geared towards getting rid of health disparities,” Crenshaw said. “We’re focused on youth, health and wellness – which is driving activity and driving healthy eating – and we’re focused on food insecurity, which can have a lot of factors that play into that aspect.”
The luncheon highlighted professionals making advancements in their fields. Action News 5’s Joe Birch was the master of ceremonies. He introduced health professionals who participated in panel discussion entitled, “The Opioid Crisis: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” The panel included professionals from the city of Memphis, Shelby County and health organization officials.
“The opioid crisis is something that’s really hot in this particular market right now,” Crenshaw said. “Not because we’re having a lot of issues with it, but because it’s a big issue in the state of Tennessee, and we need to figure out how we can get ahead of it before it becomes a big issue here in Shelby County.”
The moderator was Dr. Altha J. Stewart, director of the Center for Health and Justice Involved Youth at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, where she also is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Chief of Social and Community Psychiatry.
“I loved moderating,” Stewart said. “This is a wonderful opportunity to share information and get community folks involved in this issue. We need all the help we can get to resolve the crisis around opioid addiction.
“Events like these are very important, especially for passing on this kind of information, getting people involved in the conversation and the dialogue. It is the start of resolving the problem.”
Shelby County Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter brought a PowerPoint that painted a picture of the opioid crisis in Tennessee.
“It’s critically important that healthcare officials not only pay close attention to the opioid crisis, but to the other epidemics that face our community,” said Stewart, who outlined four specific approaches being used to meet the opioid challenge.
“That’s data, prevention and education, treatment and recovery, and first response and law Enforcement,” she said.
“I think it’s critical to have speakers – experts or not – in the broad sense. I think what’s important is different perspectives so that we can have really robust conversations about the issues that face our community and that we can really come up with Comprehensive Solutions to the problems that we face.”
Paige Powell, an assistant professor at the University of Memphis School of Public Health, said, “This was a really good networking event as well as a really good learning opportunity. …We get to learn from people who are speaking that we may not know. We get to meet people that we haven’t potentially met.
Powell also works with a consortium that does a lot with the Common Table Health Alliance. “I was also here to see Dr. Cyril Chang, my colleague and mentor, receive his honor award,” she said.
Chang, a professor of economics at the Fogelman College of Business and economics, received the Health Economist Icon award. Also saluted were Well Child, Inc. CEO Karen Pease, Health Care Provider Innovator, and UTHSC Executive Vice Chancellor and COO Ken Brown, who received the Visionary Leadership award.
Crenshaw said the luncheon was designed to start a conversation for the people in the audience that they would take with them into their workplaces and other aspects of their lives.
