There is only one way to summarize Ms. Renee Mahaffey Harris: A Powerhouse. While her office at the Center for Closing the Health Gap in Clifton is fashionable and cozy, it’s hard not to notice the accolades that cover the shelves and cabinets. She is the recipient of a UC Health Humanitarian Award, MLK Humanitarian Award, Business Courier’s Women Who Mean Business Award, and countless others. A picture of her standing with Dr. Cornel West adorns a corner. A lifetime of serving others has not gone unnoticed. After completing this interview, I mentioned Ms. Mahaffey Harris to several people who turned out to have connections with her, and all said the same thing: “Isn’t she amazing?”

We sat down with Mahaffey Harris early this spring to discuss her passion for making an equitable life for all.

Interview by Blaire Bartish. Photography by Angie Lipscomb.

When did you know you wanted to go into social justice?

At a young age! I started to observe the country – I observed Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan. Hearing them speak had a really big impact on me and helped me see that being unapologetic about speaking what your truth is and not being afraid to speak that truth by yourself. It informed and influenced my desire to just go for it! Whatever that is. I do my best doing what God is guiding me to do. I will take a stab at almost anything if it means the betterment of the issues that break my heart about this country. Health is one of those big issues.

I didn’t start out in health; I started out working in politics and then worked for many years in banking. I started working at Closing the Health Gap doing some project consulting on community-based research and activation of individuals creating solutions for themselves.

People usually describe health in terms of “Are you sick?” or “Are you going to the doctor?” or “Did you get medicine?” But health is what we live in every day. And I think that’s what people forget. When people become more empowered about understanding all these factors that influence your ability to be your best and most optimal health—it has so much to do with the environment you live in, so much to do with the circumstances or exposure you’ve been given or not given.

The reality is that everybody wants to be able to take care of themselves and provide for their families. So when those factors are very complex and systematic and driven by systemic and structural racism, those aren't lifts that someone can do by themselves. But what I share and what we talk about here [at the Center] is that we can’t change the system, but what we can do is have the knowledge to make the best decisions for ourselves. The more knowledge we can share and help people understand the way they can receive it. Meeting people where they are, is how I would define that.

It’s easier said than done. But often, strategies and approaches are put on a group of people versus engaging the very people in a part of developing the solution based on where they are, which has the greatest likelihood of having an impact over time. It takes more time, but when we’re talking about big issues like the disproportionate impacts of disease burdens and disease impacts on mortality and morbidity of Black and brown people, those are big issues. An individual can get swallowed up in that.

But what an individual can do is understand—when I go to a doctor or when I go to a hospital, what questions should you be able to have prepared to have answered before you walk in the door so you can ensure that you have enough information to ask the questions—so you get what you need from that experience. But that’s not necessarily how the big system presents it. So just teaching those very basic principles. I thank God for the opportunity to work with individuals in the community. What I hope we can do [for our clients] is to give them the exposure and knowledge they need to succeed. And although where we started may be different, that doesn’t change where we can go.

For those who don’t know, what is the Center for Closing the Health Gap?

Our mission [at the Center] is to lead efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities through advocacy, community outreach, and education. We do that through our grassroots mobilization model. We are engaging the people, but we are also engaging the practitioners – the medical providers, the social service organizations, the policymakers – to understand the how.

We’re empowering people through education. We have a campaign called the Do Right! campaign, which teaches people how to eat, live, and move right. When someone learns how to read a food label, they begin to understand everything they eat or drink has a composition. It’s not about having a gym membership; it’s about the simple things. Then there’s the mental [component]. I think there’s a lot of concentration on how your mind and what’s happening with you mentally ultimately affects your body. You add trauma to that: trauma for kids, trauma for adults, trauma from systemic and structural racism. Add that on top of [the issues with the health gap].

I’ve always been concerned about politics because I saw that as the pathway to be able to change the world until I realized it’s not necessarily the best pathway to change the world.

That ability to meet different types of educational needs comes from the Center’s partnerships with organizations like the Association of African American Physicians and the Cincinnati Association of Black Psychologists, hospitals, and so on. We have rich resources here! The challenge is that they don’t always connect. As a result of the pandemic, we all worked together in ways we never had before, and I’m going to keep pushing that envelope because we can’t do it separately.

The people that we’re serving are inundated with “stuff,” but is it coming to them in a way that is constructive? That’s supposed to be for us to figure out, not them. At the end of the day, if you become more knowledgeable, you can advocate for yourself – at your doctor’s office, at your child’s school, and at your workplace. We all want to thrive, and I think if we all realize how much we are alike rather than how we are not alike, we can better appreciate the humanity in all of us.

What is a small healthcare change that could make a large impact?

As far as an upstream change, when you use data alone to describe where someone is, it doesn’t take into account more of the qualitative research that really describes why. For example, if you look at someone’s record and see what appears to be noncompliance, rather than making an assumption based on research studies, [you should] look at it from the terms of ‘this is some information, now let me better understand that individual’s experience.’

It’s going to take some time for our medical professionals to operate differently because they’re not trained in those conversations. There are some tools that they are taught, but most decisions are made based only on what’s sitting in front of you. I don’t blame the medical profession, but it’s the way the business operates; it makes them have to perform that way because someone is looking at how much time they’re spending with patients, whether they’re medicated, etc. I think the instruction doesn’t take into account understanding a patient’s reality. It might be that they couldn’t afford the medication, or they work two or three jobs, and the clinic wasn’t open when they could go. There’s a reason why the outcome is the way it is. There are medical factors that contribute, but I don’t know what it’s going to take to change the way that training occurs so that there’re some more holistic approaches.

How is Cincinnati doing health-wise?

I don’t think Cincinnati is doing any differently than the rest of the country. I think there are some efforts that are having an impact on a subset of the population. If you look at it from a data perspective, we have high rates of cancer, obesity, and heart disease, but from a population perspective, Black and brown populations of this region are no different than other parts of the country.

For some reason, our numbers tend to look more like Southern numbers. And I don’t know exactly why that is, but there are a lot of factors. I imagine the biggest factor is economic disparities [across the city]. If you look at the economic disparities and the health disparities, there’s a lot of correlation, and there’s no easy fix for that.

We’re just starting to talk about some of the environmental factors here, where other parts of the country may have talked about them earlier because things have occurred there that have drawn greater attention to [those factors]. But the rates of asthma per capita for children are rising rapidly [in Cincinnati], and one of the factors that contribute to that is the carcinogens from gas emissions. We are a dense city, meaning we build up more instead of out. So for the people who live closest to those [built-up] places, there’s less capacity for ventilation, which leaves those populations more exposed.

Let’s switch gears. Tell me what you were like as a child.

I was not a lot different than I am today! I was trying to change the world at a young age. In fifth grade, I was leading efforts around causes that affect humanity with one of my teachers [laughing]! Frankly, from there, I have always been interested in seeing what can be done to make this world better. I’ve always been concerned about politics because I saw that as the pathway to be able to change the world until I realized it’s not necessarily the best pathway to change the world. There are many levers and many roles that we all play in making lives better for all of us.

My parents were youth pastors. They always referred to me as an example because I wasn’t afraid to stand alone at any age. I was the type of child that ran for office. I put together a full campaign with literature and materials – that just describes the kind of person I was. I was in a leadership role throughout high school in my class. As my friends would say, I was always trying to save the world! That’s just my nature, but I was also a quiet person to some extent – even though I had these big thoughts about being part of the change in this world, I'm very much an introvert. I know most people don’t believe me when I say that, but I like to read, and I like to do things that are more singular-focused.

Who is a woman who had a major impact on your life?

The most influential person in my life is my mother. She was truly my hero, and she died in August of 2020 [long pause]. She taught me to give grace to everyone. I used to always call her “Angel on Earth” because she did whatever she was asked to do by anyone. She would give anything to anyone who needed it, and she taught me how to be a good person.

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Renee Mahaffey Harris: Challenging Assumptions, Changing Lives