In 2025, the Health Foundation of South Florida took a bold step: it brought the mission of the Black Health Summit off the stage and directly into neighborhoods where health equity challenges are most acute and where community solutions are already taking shape.
What emerged was Black Health Summit In Action, an on-the-ground extension of the Summit’s core purpose: centering Black voices, elevating grassroots leadership, and addressing the conditions that shape daily life. Rather than waiting for the next gathering, the Health Foundation activated a year of tangible, community-designed efforts rooted in priorities identified by residents themselves.
A Community Effort That Began with Listening
From the earliest Summits, community members were clear: improving Black health requires more than awareness. It means addressing the issues that determine whether families can access care, afford housing, feel safe, and trust the systems intended to support them. Those insights informed the Health Foundation’s strategy, guiding investments in the areas residents identified as most urgent. The result was a public health approach grounded in partnership, proximity, and practical action.
Reframing Health Culture: Take Your Loved One to the Doctor
Inspired by radio personality Tom Joyner’s national campaign, the Health Foundation launched local activations of Take Your Loved One to the Doctor in Lauderhill and Overtown. The effort mobilized barbers, faith leaders, business owners, community organizations, and neighborhood voices to encourage Black men to seek preventive care, reframing health not as an individual responsibility but a shared community value.
The response was significant: more than 500 residents signed health pledges, and outreach efforts reached thousands of residents across both neighborhoods. In partnership with Melissa P. Dunn and MD Marketing, the campaign demonstrated how trusted messengers can reduce barriers that traditional systems often cannot reach.
Strengthening Community Safety: The Peacemakers Program
Health equity is inseparable from community safety and trust. Through continued investment in the Circle of Brotherhood’s (COB) Peacemakers Program, the Health Foundation supported one of the region’s most respected violence-interruption efforts. This was echoed in COB’s 2024 Community Safety Survey, where more than 67% of residents rated COB’s crime-prevention efforts as “Excellent” and 25% as “Good.”
Recognized by Everytown for Gun Safety, the Peacemakers mediate conflict, prevent violence before it escalates, and connect residents to essential services. Survey data reinforced these outcomes: 59% of respondents reported feeling safe in their neighborhoods, with many attributing their comfort to the Peacemakers’ presence. Their work underscored a core truth: community safety is foundational to health, and solutions are most effective when led by those closest to the challenges.
Meeting People Where They Are: Dade County Street Response
Few initiatives embodied community-centered health access more clearly than Dade County Street Response (DCSR), led by Dr. Armen Henderson, MD, MBA. Operating in Liberty City, DCSR provided medical care, case management, legal advocacy, and health education directly to residents, many of whom live entirely outside traditional medical homes.
Today, the organization serves more than 2,300 unique patients, a scale comparable to a large U.S. medical practice. Most patients are uninsured, and 80–85% live below 300% of the federal poverty level, clear evidence of the stark inequities that make DCSR’s work essential. With thousands of patient encounters across its programs, DCSR has become a trusted source of consistent, high-quality care for individuals historically excluded from traditional healthcare.
The Health Foundation highlighted DCSR as a powerful example of community-driven health access, especially for Black men who face some of South Florida’s most pronounced disparities. The partnership affirmed a core principle: health systems must go to the people, not expect the people to come to them.
Opening Doors to Health Care in Underserved Communities
Access to affordable, culturally responsive care remained a major theme across community conversations. To help address this, the Health Foundation expanded support for free and low-cost clinical services for uninsured and underinsured residents in predominantly Black neighborhoods.
These investments strengthened preventive care, improved chronic disease management, and expanded wraparound services that help families maintain long-term health. By increasing access where it was needed most, the Foundation helped close gaps in care that conventional systems have long struggled to address.
A Year of Momentum and the Road to 2026
Throughout 2025, Black Health Summit In Action demonstrated that the Summit is not simply an annual event; it is a year-round collaboration shaped by communities, powered by trusted partners, and sustained by investments aligned with community solutions.
As President and CEO, Loreen Chant reflected, “Raising awareness is only the first step. Through Black Health Summit In Action, we supported practical, community-informed strategies grounded in trust and partnership.”
The work created a year of progress, collaboration, and promise; momentum that now carries into the next Black Health Summit, returning for its fifth in-person year on June 16, 2026, at the Charles F. Dodge City Center in Pembroke Pines, FL.
What began as a collective gathering has grown into a region-wide effort, one that continues to reimagine what health equity looks like when communities lead.
Learn more at https://hfsf.org/black-health-summit-in-action/
