Changing Places: How Communities Will Improve the Health of Boys of Color

The data on nearly every measure of health and well-being make clear that boys and young men of color face a uniquely daunting set of barriers that inhibit their chances of becoming healthy, contributing members of society. The contributors in this collected volume detail how these racial/ethnic and gender disparities in community health, education, and economic outcomes develop, how they persist over time, and how they come to have profound, long-lasting effects on American families and on national and community life. Using a multidisciplinary lens, the authors shed light on how we might build healthier communities across the nation through a focus on young men and boys of colon If we take the right actions now, the work presented in this volume suggests a promising prognosis—these investments in communities, systems, and institutions will help not just these young men and boys achieve a brighter future, but enable all of us to realize a more just, productive nation.

Christopher Edley Jr. joined the University of California, Berkeley School of Law as Dean and Professor of Law in 2004, after 23 years as a professor at Harvard Law School and faculty director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project. At Berkeley, he is the founder and faculty director of the Warren Institute. He is an acclaimed scholar and policy expert, and has served as a senior adviser in both the Obama and Clinton administrations.

Jorge Ruiz De Velasco is a program officer at the Ford Foundation. Previously, he was the Associate Director and Director of Education at the Warren Institute and Director of the Institute for Research on Education Policy and Practice at the Stanford School of Education.