We are excited to announce our next Brown Bag lunch on Thursday, March 24 at 1:00 pm ET (please note earlier time than usual). ASA Fellow Mark Strand will be our featured guest. Mark is Professor of Pharmacy Practice at North Dakota State University, Department of Public Health. He was recently appointed by the governor to the North Dakota State Health Council. Mark has been thinking, writing, and teaching about public health and the common good for many years. 
We will view his presentation "The Health Benefits of Forgiveness: Integrating Medicine and Faith for Human Flourishing," followed by a live Q&A session.

ABSTRACT: The [Covid pandemic has] strained interpersonal relationships contributing to pain and suffering, some of which can be relieved by forgiveness and reconciliation. Nelson Mandela, the noted South African anti-apartheid reformer said, “Not to forgive is like drinking a glass of poison and waiting for your enemy to die.” Every day most people have opportunities to choose to forgive, or not. The experience of forgiving others can contribute to improved health in the forgiving individual, as well as in the one being forgiven.
Forgiveness is broadly understood as a process of decreasing interrelated negative resentment-based emotions, motivations, and cognition. Forgiveness offered in a particular salient context is more significant in impacting health than general self-perceptions of forgiveness. 
Using examples drawn from his own church, Mark will be explaining the physiological consequences of unresolved interpersonal conflict and describing the holistic nature of disease symptomatology. Psychology and theology both contribute to human flourishing through the process of reconciliation and forgiveness and these insights can be applied to public health and the common good. 

BIO: A member of the ASA since 1990, Mark Strand earned his PhD in health and behavioral science in 2004 from the University of Colorado at Denver. He is a professor in the College of Health Professions at North Dakota State University in Fargo. Mark is active in funded research in chronic disease epidemiology, including diabetes epidemiology, and with emphasis in the last five years on opioid misuse and overdose. He advises and teaches graduate student courses in these same areas.

Mark’s service to the ASA includes attending and presenting at the ASA annual conferences, as well supporting Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith through publishing, reviewing manuscripts, and writing book reviews. He is also an officer in the newly formed Red River Valley Chapter of the ASA. Mark and his wife Rene and their three children are active at Salem Evangelical Free Church in Fargo, ND.

Join us for this timely talk by Mark Strand. You can read more of what he has written in “Communicating Science to the Public during the COVID-19 Pandemic” (PSCF Vol 73, no. 1, [2021]: 33-45). 

To Join:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87450242720