NASHVILLE, Tenn. Kimberly Jackson, the founder and sole proprietor of HIDE (Health Impacts of Degraded Environments), has always been interested in public policy and urban planning.
“HIDE was directly the result of my masters work at Lipscomb Academy,” Jackson recalled.
She attended Lipscomb after relocating from California to Nashville with her husband. There, she studied environmental justice, specifically targeting disparate rates of asthma in public housing and earning a Masters Degree in Environmental Sustainability.
“I spent a year working and investigating in that area,” Jackson said. “I decided upon graduation not just to do it as a research project, but to get in the community and try to make effective change.”
She hoped to see that change reflected not just in her community, but in other communities as well.
At HIDE, Jackson conducts research and capacity building, focusing on efforts to ensure that, as she put it, “low income housing is also healthy housing.”
“Environment equity consulting is what I do,” she explained. “Targeting environmental exposure – mainly indoor, but also outdoor – and the effects on health.”
Jackson’s primary focus has been with low-income asthmatic patients and the health impacts they face in their environments. Her efforts include investigating homes and the exposures residents face.
Although HIDE is a one-person operation, Jackson engages in partnerships with the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance, Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College and non-profit organizations in the area. With the Alliance, she has looked into the environmental impacts of public housing.
In the short-term, her goals include research, education, technical testing and other hands-on work. Long-term, she hopes to look at how her efforts are a factor in policy changes and capacity building.
“I have a goal to have more long-term and broader impact through policy,” she said.
Jackson earned her undergraduate degree in statistics at Harvard University, before going on to the UCLA Graduate School of architecture and Urban Planning.
About the Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance
Founded in 1999, the Alliance bridges the institutions of Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University. Its mission is to enrich learning and advance clinical research by developing and supporting mutually beneficial partnerships between Meharry Medical College, Vanderbilt University and the communities they serve.
