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Cultural wellbeing researchers receive UofL Trailblazer Award
Theo Edmonds, JD, MHA, MFA, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Health Management and Systems Sciences, Director, Center for Creative Placehealing, accepted a UofL Trailblazer Award on behalf of his team during a virtual ceremony on January 28, 2021. An annual event hosted by the University of Louisville Commercialization EPI-Center, the EPIC Innovation Awards celebrate the ground-breaking work of our researchers, who develop technologies and innovations with the power to change and improve the way we work and live.
Edmonds and his team received this award for their work developing the Cultural Wellbeing Index and UPOP, a public benefit corporation that helps companies assess and improve organizational culture and drive innovation. According to Edmonds, cultural wellbeing is a mindset that supports actionable practices for bringing hope, trust, and belonging into business. He explains, "The Cultural Wellbeing Index helps leaders choose the right set of practices to bring to the right challenges for the right reasons.”
“The work Edmonds and his team have done to bring this innovation to market provides a vehicle to take this to scale—translating research to practice. This is the bedrock of population health,” said Dr. Craig Blakely, SPHIS Dean.
Blakely also emphasized the relevance of Edmonds’ research. “We must get beyond looking at workforce diversity numbers and seek to understand culture and climate. These abstract constructs are much more difficult to measure. Edmonds’ work takes us aggressively down the path by identifying and measuring cultural wellbeing at the organizational level.”
View the recording of the ceremony to see the Director of the Commercialization EPI-Center, Allen Morris, present the award starting at 24:25 and listen to Edmond’s remarks from 25:30 to 28:00.
