Community Service
David Nelson, Ph.D.
Associate professor of family and community medicine
Medical College of Wisconsin
Social determinants of health – the social and economic conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age – play a large role in community health.
David Nelson, Ph.D., a community-based researcher, believes that, “without treating both the individual and the circumstances people find themselves living in, we miss opportunities to support health.”
Nelson has been working within impoverished Milwaukee neighborhoods to better understand what’s impacting the health of these communities. His research led him to volunteering at a food pantry, which eventually led him to co-founding StreetLife Communities with Pastor Max Ramsey, who serves at Immanuel Baptist Church in Brookfield.
StreetLife Communities provides food, clothing and other support to those in need, including many who are experiencing homelessness. As a faculty member of the Medical College of Wisconsin’s public health graduate school program, Nelson frequently invites students to join him in this work. After spending time in the community, students have a better understanding of how their patients may live their lives. Nelson believes that regardless of the specialty students pursue, knowing a patient’s “story” will make them better physicians.
For the past four years StreetLife Communities has hit the streets of Milwaukee on Wednesdays and Saturdays, typically interacting with 200 to 400 people each week.
“One key to conducting community-engaged mission work is meeting people where they are,” says Nelson. “That means asking them what they need rather than assuming. Sometimes it’s a sandwich, sometimes it’s emotional support and sometimes, it’s steel-toed boots for a woman so she can go to work.”
