About

Sustainable health is the capacity of people and their communities to thrive.

The Sustainable Health Institute’s mission is build the capacity of people and their communities to thrive by teaching the art of self care.

The Sustainable Health Institute was created to carry the work of the Your Own Health And Fitness radio series into communities. The radio series has been broadcast from KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley, CA since 1994. In response to listeners and supporters, the Institute extends the show’s mission of teaching the art of self care into direct contact with people and their communities.

Like the radio show, the Institute delivers health information and develops the capacity to critically evaluate health information, health science, and health practices. Building on this educational content, the Institute provides organizational support for communities to develop health resources that integrate their local, experience-based knowledge with the Institute’s knowledge of general, evidence-based science.

The content and capacity building provided by the Institute are based on principles developed by its founders and co-producers of Your Own Health And Fitness, Jeffry Fawcett, PhD and Layna Berman.

The Art of Self-Care
Through its programs, the Institute provides people with information and resources that enable them to discover and care for their unique biology. We emphasize

• the body's amazing capacity to sustain and heal itself
• the body as an ecology, each part supporting or balancing another
• self care as doing the simplest things first

Health from the Ground Up
Through its programs, the Institute supports communities in discovering and creating social and ecological environments well-suited to their member health. We emphasize enabling access to

• safe, secure, whole, and nutrient-rich food
• a safe, non-toxic, and beautiful built environment
• the means to create social and ecological communities that sustain us

Our activities as an organization educate people and their communities in the application of these principles. Based on a well-established knowledge base for the diffusion of innovations, our activities and organizational support are designed to develop knowledge and critical thinking beyond the specific health information we deliver.

We work with community organizations through our Sustainable Health for Change program and our Sustainable Health in the Community program.

We collaborate with and support community groups affiliated with the Institute through our Sustainable Health Institute Local Chapters program.

We train community members to deliver Institute services through our Sustainable Health Stewards program.

Our goal is to create services and infrastructures that propagate sustainable health practices: the art of self care, health from the ground up.

We see our work as part of the emerging field of participatory research in which the “subjects” are the “researchers” and the outcome is personal and social change for better health.