212: Strengthening Communities from Within: Equity, Wellness, and Collective Action with Dr. A and ReGina
What does real community‑centered health equity look like, and what does it take to sustain it?
In this episode of The Health Disparities Podcast, host Jerail Fennell sits down with two powerful leaders in community health: Dr. Atiya Abdelmalik and ReGina Newkirk Rucci.
Together, they unpack the lived experiences, grassroots strategies, and relationship‑building that fuel their work across the country. From disrupting harmful systems to investing in local leadership, Dr. A and ReGina share what it truly means to listen to communities, partner with them, and build solutions that last.
Drawing from their work with the Center for Thriving Communities, they discuss:
- Why lived experience is essential to leadership
- How grassroots organizations are transforming health outcomes
- The importance of listening before acting
- What funders and institutions must do differently
- Why hope, collective care, and community power still drive the movement
- How real relationships — not extractive engagement — create lasting change
Dr. A also reflects on her book, A Life Worth Saving, and the belief that every life and every community deserves to thrive.
A must‑watch conversation for anyone working in health equity, community engagement, philanthropy, public health, or systems change.
Dr. Atiya AbdelmalikÂ
If we can go from what we journey through hundreds of years ago, what our ancestors have journeyed through, this is our time to pick it up and to keep moving forward and to not allow our hope to be stripped, to not allow our joy to be taken. So this sense of collective care, collective movement, collective justice for us to continue to do the work. Is it harder? Absolutely, but because people have made a decision to hold on and to keep moving through and to not give up, that’s what gives me hope. So if I see that you still moving, then imagine if we all come together and collectively move this work forward.
Jerail FennellÂ
You’re listening to the health disparities podcast from movement is life. I’m Jerail Fennell, the Director of Marketing and Communications for the organization. Today, we have the pleasure of being joined by Dr Atia Abdelmalik, also known as Dr, a chief well being active activator at HCD consulting LLC, and former director of the Center for thriving communities. She is a nurse, author, speaker, and nationally recognized advocate for community health and the well being of those who care for others. And also joining us today, we have ReGina Newkirk Rucci, Managing Director of the Center for thriving communities, and the principal and founder of edge over solutions. Regina has spent her entire career working alongside marginalized communities from
adult literacy to HIV services, and now she leads efforts to strengthen grassroots organizations addressing health disparities. Together, they bring a powerful blend of lived experience, leadership and community centered strategy. Dr A and ratia Atia, welcome to the health disparities podcast.
Dr. Atiya AbdelmalikÂ
Thank you, Jerry, thank you for having us
Jerail FennellÂ
Absolutely and it’s good to see you again. So the last time we saw each other in person, we were at the 2025 summit up in Virginia, where you all led a very powerful and impactful session. Tell me about your time in Virginia, how you failed, how the session went, and those things well.
Dr. Atiya AbdelmalikÂ
Movement is life has been a part of my life for a few years. This was my second opportunity to come and share community grounded work. This year was no different. It was very powerful to be in a space with so many community change agents, and especially in this time in our history, it just instilled hope and inspired action. So it was a it was really a blessing to be in that space,
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
I have to agree, and one of the most fulfilling moments for me was being at the movement is life conference, and being there with one of the grassroots organizations that we worked with in the center for thriving community so just the full circle moment and making sure and understanding the impact of this work and how widespread it is. Was fantastic.
Jerail FennellÂ
Absolutely it was. It was a great session. You all kicked us off. Had the entire room engaged throughout your entire presentation. Folks can go and see that presentation on our website, movement of staff, community.org, and we hope to see you all in Detroit at this year’s 2026
health summit, taking place in Detroit, September 23 to the 25th but let’s, let’s get this episode kicked off. So to start us off, what inspired each of you to dedicate your work to health equity and community wellness?
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
Let’s say it, I’ll jump in. I think for me, it’s always been an issue of justice and really understanding that we have haves and have nots. Those chasms are large in some cases, but we as individuals and as communities have the power to close those and so really engaging in work that makes everybody better, because if my neighbor is better than so am I, and so is my community, and I believe that in my heart of hearts. So I’ve been very fortunate for throughout my life to engage in that work in various forms, and it has truly been meaningful to me to see the differences made in individual people as well as in communities powerful.
Dr. Atiya Abdelmalik
ReGina, when you think about your why I grew up in the same communities we are trying to address some of the worst disparities and inequities, and growing up with that lived experience really sparked my movement through nursing, my first clinical and community jobs were at federally qualified health centers in the neighborhoods I grew up in. They were in the hospitals right around the corner from my home. And my question was, why are we facing these disparities? Why don’t we have access to healthy food and safe streets and neighborhoods and clinical and health systems that provide the most competent, compassionate and quality care. That question had me growing up in those neighborhoods, but being determined to do something about it, so I became a nurse, and I worked in those community organizations and those health systems, caring for my people and understanding that we are the deliverers of the health care. We are the ones we make those decisions we provide the quality care we decide to humanize and give the best care to those who need it most. We make those decisions, and I wanted to be a part of that. I didn’t want to run from it. I didn’t want to get a job outside of the neighborhood. I wanted to take care of my own people.
Jerail FennellÂ
Yeah, and even at the summit, dr, a you talked about your lived experience similar to how you’re how you’re doing now, how has that shaped your leadership?
Dr. Atiya AbdelmalikÂ
Oh, it has made me more empathetic. It has made me more conscious of how we show up. I have this model is, you know, the spaces that you enter and exit, they should be changed for the better because you occupied the space. So I’ve always carried this lens that these are my people. I think about if that’s my grandmother, I had my grandfather on the floor in my hospital, and so I carry the people from my community. I carry the people and my family with me. So whatever space I’m leading, whether it’s with a team, with the collaborative that made up the center for thriving communities, with the community organizations and the community members that we’ve engaged in, I’m bringing a lens of humanity. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and care and kindness. I think about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. So the first thing is, I’m humanizing every person, and I’m humanizing every situation that I’m in, and I’m asking myself, How would I want to be treated? And so that really drives my leadership approach.
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
I want to add on to that, because I think there’s another aspect that particularly impacts the Tia’s leadership approach, and something that people should think about in general, and it’s true for me as well, and that is the understanding that comes through lived experience, including the importance of lived experience. So when we were at the Center for thriving communities together at Tia, was very much about who is not in the room, whose voice needs to be at the table as we go through this decision making process. And it’s not an add on at the end to say that you involve the community, but making sure that the community is walking lockstep with you, the fact that the community has the ability to check you and really make sure that this is of the community, for the community, by the community, and will actually benefit the community. And I think having that experience coming to the table, knowing, seeing firsthand the situations
where you’ve been left out, seeing the impact of not having the right voices at the table also really, really impacts the Tia’s leadership. I certainly hope it has impacted mine. And I think is one of the things that is most paramount as you talk about community centered healthcare approaches
Jerail FennellÂ
One of the things we say in the marketing world all the time is whenever an organization has a marketing flub, you think about these organizations who put out commercials and graphics and then had to retreat. We always ask the question, who’s at that table? Who’s in that marketing room that put that young man in that shirt that said that thing that another community will be offended by? So the importance of having diverse voices, and everyone’s voice heard at the table is extremely. Extremely important so, and I see you at Zoo that all the time. Dr, a so I appreciate you for sharing that. And Regina, we had the opportunity of working together for three years at a prior organization. So I know you pretty well, but what core beliefs guide your work today?
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
I think very similar to a TIA, you know, if at the end of it, no one’s going to be better than why are we doing it? I don’t believe in doing things just for doing them. I think really trying to improve the world we live in. Improve life for people improve people themselves, be that health, knowledge, strength, self empowerment, whatever those situations might be, that really guides my work. And while my story, I think, is a little different than a Tia’s, it has a similar impact, and mine is really from my father. And both of my parents grew up in very rural, poor sharecropping communities in North Carolina, and, you know, they’re going to college. Was not the thing being better. You just were trying to work and make a living, right? You know, my grandfather dropped out of school at eighth grade so he could work the farms, not because he didn’t have the intellectual capacity, but because you needed the money in the household. And so my father’s community sent him to school. There were people who invested in him. There were people who made sure he was able to get on a bus to go. And when he got to college, he got letters from his parents asking him to come home because they needed help on the farm, and the college rallied around him. Let’s get you some extra jobs. Let’s get you some ways that you can send money home so that you can stay here and get an education. And from that, my father has a PhD. I know personally the impact of communities investing in individuals, and that how life changing it can be that drives my work, because I wouldn’t be here without communities who invested in me and those before me
Jerail FennellÂ
And talking about community, how a community investment, investing in your community, can change the trajectory of one’s life, and then the generations that come behind that, and the work that you all are currently doing kind of has that same impact. I believe that it does. It’s it’s making the change today for flowers that you all may never get a chance to smell what you’re planting the seeds so, so tell us about the work you’re currently doing and the communities that you’re focusing on.
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
I say, Well, what? I think we’ve had a lot of programs and work through the Center for thriving communities, but the one that stands out for me, and that may not be true for Atea, but the one that stands out for me is the community leadership training program, and that has been an opportunity to work with small, grassroots nonprofits, really community, truly community based nonprofits, and the work that they’re doing to support them in their capacity to do that work. So this was an interesting opportunity to say, hey, you know the community. You know your needs, and you’ve got really creative solutions to addressing them. We have knowledge of systems. We have knowledge of this nonprofit space. We have connections to people who are either doing similar work or doing work that impacts the work that you’re doing. Let’s bring you together so really building the knowledge understanding so things like grant writing, communications. You actually worked with some of our CLT members right to speak to them about how to have effective communications, especially when you don’t have money and that’s not your field of reference. How do you write grants? How do you properly evaluate your programs? I think a lot of people focus on the what they don’t focus on that. How do we know that it did what it did? So making sure that not only can you you do you know it’s working, but you can show it’s working all of those things, and then providing a mini grant to those organizations to. To do this work. And through that, we worked with nine organizations this past year, and we were able to serve, excuse me, over 3000 people, which is phenomenal so but really by building their capacity. And again, it’s a little bit of teaching a man to fish so that the work continues, whether we’re there or not. We want to provide knowledge. We want to provide information. I still have people calling. We had one of the CLT members call me yesterday for some information, and let me make this connection for you, and I’m talking with another one later on today about a connection that I can make for them. So really just trying to build that network of support so that you’ve got a really good, solid foundation as well as you understand the systems in which you’re operating, so that you can do your work more effectively.
Jerail FennellÂ
And talking about connecting, making that change, because these aren’t small potatoes. You said you work with non organizations that has been impacted over 3000 people. So that’s that ripple effect that you were talking about earlier, where you impact one and it can impact a lot more than what you’ll even get to see or touch yourself,
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
and there still continuing. That was people this year, right? Those organizations are still going on, and that, again, was very much, I think, a Cornerstone, almost from day one at Tia, when we were working, that we would not leave communities worse off than we felt. Yeah, and I think that a lot of unfortunately, a lot of grants and some organizations have gone into communities with the best of intentions. But what has happened is essentially vampire research. We’ve come in, we’ve come in, we’ve extracted, we’ve extracted what we need to know, and then now that we’ve got it, we’re out, and the communities are actually worse off than they were before they came in. We wanted to make sure we had a different approach.
Dr. Atiya Abdelmalik
Yeah, I have to underscore every word that Regina shared from my perspective, there are two, I would say, undercurrents, the foundations that have given me the most hope, and one is the equity action lab model that we used with community members to address their top issues and come up with their own solutions and resource them to do so. But most importantly, the process that the center took as a multi sector collaborative, because none of this work, the CLT program, the community leadership training program, the equity action labs, none of them would have been done in this manner had the sector, the collect, the collaborative came together and made the decision to do things differently. Four very different organizations, from a large health system to a smaller nonprofit, decided that we were not going to do the same thing. And so that declaration fueled every part of the Center’s work. So we went in with the mindset is that if we truly believe that community members have the answers, and we truly believe that they can create and implement their own solutions, and we know that the reason why they’re not able to do it at such a high level is because they’re not getting the resources, they’re being overlooked and they’re being dismissed. Then let’s take what we have. So we had a great funder that allowed us to lead this work the right way and put it back into the community. So the way you lead an organization, the way you lead a grant, the way you lead a process, is critical to the outcome and is most critical to the sustainability of the work. We knew that if we invested in the people who are going to stay in the communities, so if I think about the folks who invested in me, me me staying in the community, me working within the communities I lived in. That’s the greatest investment. So take that same model and put it on a larger scale. Give people the financial resources to solve their problems, strengthen their capacity and activate the power that they have to implement their own solutions, give them and open the doors for them to create their networks so that when you leave and you will that community continues to work. So with the equity action lab model that was it my PhD, along with my PhD. And lived experience. Met with the PhD and lived experience in the communities we served across Florida, and that combination, that partnership, allowed these organizations to address issues that were important to them. It helped them increase the capacity of their teams and their organizations. It gave them the financial knowledge, the leadership knowledge, but also helped them to develop and cultivate the confidence to keep it moving. Regina mentioned she had a call with one of our partners yesterday, I had a call with one of our partners. The day before, I had a call with another community members last week, it was with one of the consultants. Relationships are important. That’s why I said it earlier. The way you enter and exit spaces, we need to put care into that so that when you do move on, when you start a new project, when something ends, something still grows after your departure,
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
let’s say, and I want to add another piece of that, because the TIA talked about the way that you enter and exit spaces. I want to underscore the fact that you actually have to enter the spaces. We spent a while traveling around the state, meeting with people, because it is relational, and so people need to know who you are and what you stand for, and to know that you’re going to show up. There’s a lot of distrust in communities, and rightfully so, I think, going into those spaces, letting people see who you really are, calling the truth out for what it is, and what you’re doing, how you’re going to engage in this space. One of the things that we really committed to was being honest and telling them, hey, it won’t be for every community. We’re not going to be
able to serve every single neighborhood, but you know what? We going to come back and tell you what we are doing and why we’re doing it, and answer any questions you have, and always be ready to hear so I think one of the other things that often gets glossed over is really going into communities. I have seen so many opera I’ve seen so many organizations operate in. Oh, we’re going to go have a community meeting. We’re going to invite everybody in, we’re going to tell you what we’re doing, and then we’re going to be out. We can tell anybody’s name. Nobody knows anything. You didn’t really hear the community speak and what their concerns and issues were. There’s no two way dialog. There we went and had lunch with people. We went to county fairs. We went to church meetings, playgrounds, playgrounds, playgrounds, wherever people were and would meet with us and talk with us. And we’re just learning, and we’re at Tia says learning and unlearning, and I think that’s a really important part of this process, but you have to be there. And I really, really, we had, again, a funder who allowed us to do that. That was the most critical piece of this work, because, as we just said, you know, these relationships are still in place, and so we worked to do that and to build that trust. But people really, really know both of us in this space,
Jerail FennellÂ
yeah, one of the things that that you both really harped on at the summit, and it has stuck with me since 2025 is you talked about the importance of listening to community and they’re going to tell you what they need, opposed to going into the communities and telling them what they need. And you all had this model of you’re more successful once you go in and listen and receive and implement what they tell you into your plan, opposed to just giving them your plan and saying, here it is, you have more longevity when you invest in what their what their thoughts are and what they say they need. So I think that this touches on all of that. If you, if you haven’t seen that summer video, please go to the website and watch that entire presentation after you finish this podcast episode because it will change your life. Y’all were, y’all were preaching at the summit. Y’all had folks snapping and clapping and standing up so, so as we’re as we’re looking forward. Um, what gives you hope right now? I know a lot of folks in the country are feeling hopeless. A lot of communities in the country are still trying to find their footing and just even get on solid ground. What gives you hope right now?
Dr. Atiya AbdelmalikÂ
The movement continues. So what gives me a hope is that every time I get into a space of hopelessness, there’s a story, there’s a declaration. Made. There is someone calling me up or sending me something to say that the movement continues, that of course, in the space that we’re navigating, who wouldn’t feel some sense of hopelessness or helplessness. But then there are people are saying that’s what is being taken away. It’s you’re actually being robbed from that we can’t allow what we’ve done and what we’ve accomplished to be stripped away. So I’m I’m hopeful, because there are still healers out there. There are still the the movement still continues. When I look at all of the people that we touch, all of the organizations, they’re still doing it. It might be harder, but I have to reflect on what we’ve already journeyed through. So if we can go from what we journeyed through hundreds of years ago, what our ancestors have journeyed through. This is our time to pick it up and to keep moving forward and to not allow our hope to be stripped, to not allow our joy to be taken. So this sense of collective care, collective
movement, collective justice for us to continue to do the work. Is it harder? Absolutely, but because people have made a decision to hold on and to keep moving through and to not give up, that’s what gives me hope. So if I see that you still moving, then imagine if we all come together and collectively move this work forward. I’m seeing networks be built. I’m seeing folks meeting and continuing. I’m seeing funders step up. I’m seeing grassroots organizations say, Look, we already know it’s been hard for us. I’m seeing everyone make a decision that no matter what happens, we won’t give up. And that gives me hope.
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
I think it’s easy to get distracted by all of the stuff up here, and the stuff up here is important, don’t, don’t, let me lead you otherwise, but I think it’ll take your eye off of the people movement again, sort of what a tea is saying. I still see people and their ingenuity every day, people are coming up with creative ways to help each other and truthfully. Right now, I see more people acting on behalf of another person, again, that community level support, I see really creative solutions to problems that are arising. I see people saying, This matters, you matter, and contributing and pitching in, and that gives me hope, because at the end of the day, it’s still all people. And what I also know is that as people coalesce solutions, then communities come together and coalesce so solutions, and then those communities also work together. And you can get to the stuff up here. There’s a lot of movement at the community level right now, and people are genius. I mean, just flat out genius. I’m seeing some really, really fantastic, creative solutions to some challenges that people have.
Jerail FennellÂ
I love that. And if we could take a broad brush and do a stroke. What do we need in looking at your work and the work that you all do in the community, what do we need more of and what do we need less of? What will help you more? What will help you like? What? What Can folks do from all levels of community, whether it’s the CEO of a big organization to the mom and pop shop owner in the community who’s, you know, working Monday through Sunday 12 hours a day to get things done. What do we need more of, and what do we need less of for organizations like yours to be successful?
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
Well, number one, I think that we really need more listening. There a lot of people talking, not everybody’s listening, and so that in a shared value of community, if we are all believing in the importance and the strength in community. Community, then we can really come together and
coalesce around some great solutions. Now I will also say this isn’t quite the question you asked, but I’m gonna answer it anyway, because that’s what I do. I think we also really on the health front, a have to pay more attention to the social disparities that impact health, right as well as I think we really got to start talking about food. We have a food crisis in this country, both from the fact that we eat a lot of things that aren’t food. Food Food isn’t readily available to everyone, and we have a tremendous number of people who, if they get real food, don’t know what to do with it. So I think as we start talking about improving health as communities and organizations, I think we have to also be talking about those social disparities that are impacting people’s ability to be healthy, as well as food itself.
Dr. Atiya AbdelmalikÂ
You know, I think about these points a lot, if a system is designed in such a way to harm those who are marginalized and under resourced, then a system has to be disrupted and redesigned and created in a way to eliminate these things for good. There needs to be system accountability. Systems accountability. There needs to be leadership, the right leadership in the right spaces, with the right accountabilities cascading throughout organizations, cascading throughout government organizations, cascading through every entity responsible for the conditions that prevent people from thriving. There needs to be a sense of collective care and responsibility. One we are all interconnected, whether we want to believe that or not. So how do we foster and cultivate this sense of collective care and responsibility? There needs to be resources funneling in the money is there? Make sure the money, whether it’s from a funder, philanthropic organization, whether it’s through companies, invest in your communities, invest in the people, invest in making change. We need to use our resources in a way that actually changes something.
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
I want to add to the resources comment, because Hallelujah, Amen, definitely, that is needed, but one of the things that also comes with that is particularly funders, listen to the organizations that you’re working with, and allow some flexibility for the needs that arise, we really were able to work with the funder to say, hey, we need to take some time. We’ve got to really go out into the community, let them know us, let them filter in what’s needed. Work, develop a partnership and a trusting relationship to determine what this program needs to be, and the funder allowed us to do that that made all of the difference. And so lots of times, you know, you’ve got very rigid guidelines, and it has to be this, this, this, this, well, that doesn’t make sense for this community, but there isn’t the ability to, you know, finagle it, because the funder is very tied to it. I think some conversations and some flexibility with organizations in funding it, because you’re really focused focus on the outcome, as opposed to the steps to get to the outcome, can really have more tremendous work happening in the community.
Dr. Atiya AbdelmalikÂ
And just to add to that, you know, when I think about the listening piece, something that we did, because you can listen and not act. You can listen and be extractive in your listening. So it’s not just the listening, but it’s the way you listen and what you do. You can also listen, act on what you think is right, but not partner with community. So we got to thread the listening through. Listen partner, act on what is being said. So it needs to be some accountability and responsibility with that listening and resource the people you’re listening to, I think that was one of the biggest things with us. We weren’t trying to offer you just a dinner and a gift card. We wanted to be your partner. We wanted to build something together, and we wanted to reach your resource you in the way that works best for you. Yeah, so really understanding that the folks in the community that’s given us the time and space you need to look at, look at them as your consultants. They’re not just community. They’re giving their wisdom. They’re giving their lived experience. They’re consulting with you. So just like you gonna pay consultant, you need to pay the folks that you’re listening to.
Jerail FennellÂ
100% I love that. I love that. Listen. I thank you both for for joining me today. Are there, are there any upcoming events that folks can look forward to? Where should we follow you and get engaged? Dr, a, I know you have a book out called the life worth saving. So I want to know about all of the things. And our audience wants to know about all of the things that we can get involved social media and all of those great things.
Dr. Atiya AbdelmalikÂ
Yes, thank you. So yes, my book a life worth saving a nurse’s journey from sickness to healing, and it is about my lived experience and my belief that every life is worth saving. I got a lot of copies so you can reach out to me. I am on LinkedIn with my name, and I’m on Instagram with nurse, the number two doctor,
ReGina Newkirk RucciÂ
and you can follow the Center for thriving communities. We have a website, the Center for thriving communities.org, and then we have, we’re on LinkedIn, we’re on Facebook, we’re on Instagram, so just follow us on socials and find out about all the things that we’ve been doing.
Jerail FennellÂ
I love it. Well listen. I want to thank you both for taking your time out today to join us on the health disparities podcast, for sharing your stories, your insights, your visions and your commitment to community, because we all do want to see everyone thrive. I can talk to you all, all day, I really can. But that brings us to the end of another episode of the health disparities podcast from movement is life. I am Jerail Fennell, and until next time, be safe and be well.