For the fifth consecutive year, ACLM's Health Equity Achieved through Lifestyle Medicine (HEAL) Initiative provides needs-based assistance to support lifestyle medicine training and certification for underrepresented in medicine (UIM) clinicians.
ST. LOUIS, April 29, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) announced 10 clinicians will join the fifth cohort of the Health Equity Achieved through Lifestyle Medicine (HEAL) Initiative Scholarship Program. The scholarship is for medical professionals who are working to reduce lifestyle-related chronic disease in high-risk underserved and rural-based populations. The HEAL Initiative Scholarship Program is designed to diversify the health care workforce by awarding underrepresented in medicine (UIM) clinicians with need-based scholarships valued at $4,295 each to cover the costs associated with attaining education and certification in lifestyle medicine.
ACLM established the HEAL Initiative to address lifestyle-related chronic disease health disparities through lifestyle medicine solutions. HEAL represents more than 1,300 clinicians, many of whom use the Community Engaged Lifestyle Medicine (CELM) framework to make lifestyle medicine accessible to all populations. Scholarship applicants completed a personal statement that highlighted innovative programs anchored in lifestyle medicine concepts. Awardees practice within care settings that partner with community-based organizations, public health departments, faith-based entities, and other agencies embedded in places where their patients live, work, play, and pray.
"ACLM and HEAL Initiative leaders have collectively identified clinicians who are doing an excellent job collaborating with community partners to increase access to and awareness for lifestyle medicine and healthy lifestyle habits," said ACLM President Padmaja Patel, MD, DipABLM, FACLM, CPE. "We know that innovative strategies that leverage community-based assets are successful in improving patient outcomes for individuals at a higher risk for lifestyle-related chronic disease due to underlying social and economic factors like food and housing insecurity."
ACLM, a society of medical professionals united to reverse chronic disease, is made up of clinicians representing the interdisciplinary care team. Thus, the nearly 90 HEAL Initiative scholars who have accepted the scholarship since its inception in 2020 represent nutritionists, dietitians, leaders in non-profits, and primary care providers. HEAL Initiative Scholarship-eligible applicants self-identify as Black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, or Indigenous. Research shows that patients from minority backgrounds are more likely to have better health outcomes if their clinician shares their race and ethnicity.
One of the 2025 HEAL Initiative scholars is Meryl Fury, MS, RN, president and CEO of Wisconsin-based Plant Based Nutrition Movement, Inc., who leads programs that partner with schools, faith-based organizations, and summer camps to encourage under-resourced children to eat more plants and educate their families on how to make healthier eating sustainable. While many HEAL Initiative scholars are new to ACLM, Fury has been an ACLM member since 2021 and was recently appointed to the HEAL Initiative leadership board as secretary. She joins two-term co-chair David Bowman, MD, DipABLM, FACLM, and newly appointed co-chair Daniel Chen, MD, FACP, DipABLM. Chen leads lifestyle medicine multidisciplinary shared medical appointments at Esperanza Health Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC)in Pennsylvania. Developing a workforce of FQHC primary care providers to implement lifestyle medicine is a strategic priority advanced through ACLM's National Training Initiative.
In addition to coursework and preparation for certification in lifestyle medicine, scholarship recipients receive one-year membership in ACLM, registration for ACLM's annual conference, and American Board of Lifestyle Medicine exam registration fees. ACLM will accept applications for the next cohort of HEAL scholars in early 2026.
The 2025 HEAL scholarship recipients are:
Edilberto Cacseco, PA
TrueCare
Oceanside, CA
Nichole Brathwaite-Dingle, MD, MPH
Fort Bend County Health and Human Services
Richmond, TX
David Benavides, MD
Mass General Brigham - Brigham & Women's Hospital
Boston, MA
Connie A. Moreno, MSN, FNP
Petaluma Health Center
Petaluma, CA
Erica Watson, DrHSc
WiseTree Health Connections, LLC
New London, CT
JayVon Muhammad, MA, CPM, LM
Good Health Family Healing Center
Iowa, LA
Jakeva Moss, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC
UF Health – Jacksonville
Jacksonville, FL
Cashmere Miller, NP
U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
Atlanta, GA
Claudia Guillen, DNP
Mass General Brigham - Brigham & Women's Hospital
Boston, MA
Meryl Fury, MS, RN
Plant Based Nutrition Movement, Inc.
Village of Pleasant Prairie, WI
About ACLM®
The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) is the nation's medical professional society advancing the field of lifestyle medicine as the foundation of a redesigned, value-based and equitable healthcare delivery system, essential to achieving the Quintuple Aim and whole-person health. ACLM represents, advocates for, trains, certifies, and equips its members to identify and eradicate the root cause of chronic disease by optimizing modifiable risk factors. ACLM is filling the gaping void of lifestyle medicine in medical education, providing more than 1.2 million hours of lifestyle medicine education to physicians and other health professionals, since 2004, while also advancing research, clinical practice and reimbursement strategies.
Media Contact
Alex Branch, Director of Communications, American College of Lifestyle Medicine, American College of Lifestyle Medicine, 9719835383, [email protected]
SOURCE American College of Lifestyle Medicine
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