Matthew McCurdy
Executive Director, BLKHLTH
Joy is a Design Principle: Reimagining Health Equity Through the BLKHLTH Bodega
Public health often approaches equity through deficit and despair. The BLKHLTH Bodega flips that lens — centering joy, creativity, and cultural memory as design principles. This session walks through how BLKHLTH transformed a familiar space, the neighborhood bodega, into a future that humanizes health. We’ll discuss how our team used experiential design to spark dialogue about racial health inequities, capture visions of a healthy future with community members, and explore what it means to design for dignity in health communication and advocacy.
About Matthew
Matthew McCurdy (he/him) is passionate about applying social science theory, health equity frameworks, and design to develop creative solutions that improve health outcomes for Black people.
Matthew has experience working with Federal programs to create strategies, track performance, and evaluate programs to drive continuous improvement. Matthew also works as the Director of Programs at Emory Health DesignED where he leads the equitable integration of tech into wellbeing and healthcare.
He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Georgia State University and a Master of Public Health with a concentration in Behavioral Science and Health Education from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
Areas of expertise: Racism and health, social drivers of health, program management, design thinking, strategic planning, and program evaluation