Black Bodies, Black Health wins Award of Distinction at the 30th Annual Communicator Awards
The book, Black Bodies, Black Health (a visual archive chronicling the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice's 18-month research project supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) has won the Award of Distinction in the Educational Institution Print Content category at the 30th Annual Communicator Awards. The publication was compiled, curated and produced by the Institute's Director of Marketing and Communications, Tania Bentley who is also named as a recipient of the award.
Building an Inter-Disciplinary Conversation
The Black Bodies, Black Health research project led by PIs Michelle Stephens (Founding and Executive Director, Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University, Professor of English and Latino and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick) and Anna Branch (Senior Vice President for Equity at Rutgers University, and Professor of Sociology at Rutgers-New Brunswick) brought together researchers from diverse fields of knowledge from across Rutgers University to engage in interdisciplinary work in exploring and unpacking structural racism in service of creating equitable health outcomes while maintaining a humanistic approach and frame.
The project provided seed grants for 2022 and 2023 to support a range of multi-disciplinary research projects that focus on forms of physician education; the carceral state; environmental racism; the physiological impact of racism on black bodies; ethics and decolonial justice in global health; and the links between social justice leadership and transformative self-care.
Through these seed grants, workshops, conferences and both scholarly and public writing, Black Bodies, Black Health incentivized humanists, social scientists, and biomedical researchers to engage in interdisciplinary work to explore and unpack structural racism in service of creating equitable health outcomes.
A Transformative Impact
The Communicator Awards is dedicated to recognizing excellence, effectiveness, and innovation across all areas of communication. The leading international awards program honoring talent in a highly competitive field, the Communicator Awards honor work that transcends craft—work that makes a lasting impact, and provides an equal chance of winning to all entrants regardless of company or agency size and project budget, providing winners and their clients the recognition they deserve, and giving communications and creative professionals proof and validation that their work is highly regarded by their peers within the industry.
This award is presented to projects that exceed industry standards in quality and achievement and recognizes excellence, effectiveness, and innovation across all areas of communication. They are the leading international awards program honoring talent in this highly competitive field celebrating three decades of impactful communication across industries and mediums.
The Communicator Awards are sanctioned and reviewed by the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts, an invitation-only group consisting of top-tier professionals from acclaimed media, communications, advertising, creative and marketing firms. AIVA members include executives from Amazon, Big Spaceship, Chelsea Pictures, Conde Nast, Critical Mass, Disney, ESPN, GE Digital, IBM, The Nation of Artists, Nextdoor, Spotify, Time, Inc., the Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones, and Wired.
Upon completion, the Black Bodies, Black Health research project released two publications—the e-book focused on the research and events the project sponsored which won the award; and a digital, immersive newsletter focused on the Rutgers researchers who participated.
For more on the Communicator Awards, please click here.
With special thanks to The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Claire Gibbons, President Jonathan Holloway, Prabhas Moghe, Brian Strom, Denise Richards, The Black Bodies, Black Health Steering Committee, seed grantees and researchers, and the ISGRJ staff for supporting and contributing to this impactful and transformative work in disrupting racial health disparities to imagine a just racial future.
Watch the highlight video from the Black Bodies, Black Health research project below:
