Two Bellagio Center Fellows walk into a dining hall.
It’s the first day of their month-long residency in July 2022, and by chance, the two strangers sit next to each other for lunch. What happens next will reverberate through the coming months, and perhaps for decades to come.
“I knew right away that Darrick was someone I wanted to know better, who was interesting and intellectually stimulating, but also fun,” recalled Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, a physician and former Health Commissioner of New York City during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“He’s going to make me cry in this interview,” responded Darrick Hamilton, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy and Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Power, and Political Economy at The New School for Social Research in New York City.
During the four weeks of shared meals, walks, and conversations at Bellagio, both men discovered “that one of fundamental questions Darrick’s been grappling with is the purpose of an economy,” said Chokshi, who is currently Sternberg Family Professor of Leadership at the City College of New York. “And I’ve been grappling with how to prevent the millions of uniquely American ‘birthdays lost’—our shortened lifespans. Both of us, obsessing over our respective questions, found this fertile intersection.”
Returning to their New York City homes after their Bellagio residency, the two joined forces to launch the Health and Political Economy Project (HPEP), dedicated to a just and inclusive economy that enables all people to experience health and dignity.
Then they went back to Bellagio in June 2024 for a convening they created to draw together 21 leading scholars, practitioners, and civil society leaders, including Natalie Diaz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Indigenous poet who was part of that 2022 residency as well. Together, they developed a course of action for HPEP.
“The Rockefeller Foundation knows that our investments alone aren’t enough,” said Sarah Geisenheimer, Vice President, Convenings and Networks, The Rockefeller Foundation. “We believe in the power of connection and collaboration to change the world for the better. The Bellagio Center has facilitated countless connections, among them this powerful partnership between Dave and Darrick, that unite diverse perspectives and approaches into a transformative solution.”
HPEP’s goal is to generate ideas, then develop policies and strategies to implement these ideas, and finally engage diverse communities to drive adoption.
The focus is on reorienting public and private finance toward long-term investments in health such as baby bonds, rebalancing power toward patients rather than profiteering, and deepening broad public understanding about the links between health and the economy.
“We have a big vision for this project,” said Hamilton, who has noted in previous interviews that while he loves learning, he ultimately believes knowledge must help create meaningful change.
“We are seeking to catalyze a new deal at the intersection of health and the political economy, so there is a lot to do in the realm of ideas and discourse and changing hearts and minds,” Hamilton said. “But we won’t be satisfied if this remains on the pages of a journal—this needs to actually change the systems that shape the lives of our families, neighbors, the people we aim to serve.”
What Chokshi and Hamilton seek—along with inaugural HPEP director Victor Roy and associate director Mara Heneghan—is to spur a more inclusive economy that prioritizes wellbeing and dignity.
Residents of impoverished communities are at increased risk for mental illness, chronic disease, higher mortality, and lower life expectancy due to unmet social needs, environmental factors, and barriers to accessing health care, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
One study found that men and women in the top 1 percent of income were expected to live 14.6 and 10.1 years longer respectively than men and women in the bottom 1 percent.
“Life expectancy in the United States has lagged that of peer countries since 1980, driven in part by higher mortality rates among Black and American Indian adults and people of lower socioeconomic status,” Chokshi wrote in an August 2022 New York Times opinion piece. “Given that health is tightly linked to economic security, economic policy must be viewed as health policy.”
Both men are determined to help change this pattern. They attribute the shared values, goals, and connections they discovered at Bellagio with fueling their HPEP partnership.
“One of the aphorisms I try to live by is that relationships are the foundation of all accomplishments,” said Chokshi. “It sounds straightforward when you articulate it, but a lot of us lose sight of that simple truth in the hurly-burly of our lives. Bellagio allows for friendship and fellowship to unspool in an unhurried way.”
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