Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

I'm Joshua Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement,

and a former health commissioner here in Baltimore.

Our goal is to bring evidence and experience to illuminate critical public health issues.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jhhhu.edu.

That's public health question at jhu.edu for future podcast episodes.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Smith-Rogers, producer, Public Health on Call.

Today, getting ready for Thanksgiving and the possibility of some difficult conversations.

Dr. Consuelo Amat, an assistant professor of political science at the SNF Agora Institute,

is an expert in peace building and social movements. She speaks with Dr. Josh Sharstein about how to bridge divides with people in your lives. Let's listen.

Professor Amat, thank you so much for joining me in public health on call. I'm not sure we've

had an expert in peace building, and it comes just in time for the holiday season. How are you doing?

Thank you very much, Josh, for having me. It's a pleasure. I'm doing well. Thank you.

So around the time of the holidays, we notice at the school that some of our students, staff,

and faculty get stressed because they are going to be with relatives.

And sometimes these relatives may have very different types of views on active political questions than they do.

And it is really hard.

It is really hard.

And I think it's especially hard because it's not just a disagreement about policy and ideas. The political

environment has become so polarized that it has to do also with personal animosity against

the other. So a process that we call othering. You know, you see others as an enemy and them as

people being wrong part of kind of our communities.

...