Poverty is not a character flaw; it is a condition that requires treatment.
Poverty has reached epidemic proportions, and the current U.S. system for addressing it is disjointed, unscientific, and unsustainable—in fact, it isn’t really a system at all. In an “industry” of good intentions, stigma and benign neglect rather than science and data drive how the U.S. deals with poverty. Though we spend hundreds of billions, most efforts are a confusing mix of disparate approaches, players, stakeholders, standards, and disappointing outcomes.
By approaching poverty as a condition that can be best treated by proper assessment, standards of care, and quality control measures, Marcella Wilson, Ph.D. is overturning decades of well-intentioned but ineffective remedies.
In her paradigm-changing new book Diagnosis Poverty, Wilson outlines the challenges posed by poverty and offers a new approach based on a proven model of service delivery—the medical model. Dr. Wilson’s model defines uniform standards of care, research-based efficacy analytics, and continuous quality improvement (CQI) lacking in other approaches to poverty, yet standard in healthcare, manufacturing, and many other industries.
Of note to decision makers is the fact that this new paradigm is achievable based on current resources and expenditures.
Diagnosis: Poverty highlights:
- The author’s commitment to a scalable, sustainable, national standard of care to treat the condition of poverty
- A realistic and already implemented service delivery system that defines, integrates, and holds accountable all providers
- The vast existing financial resources, supports, and service already funded to treat poverty
- Transition to Success, a uniform system of care, standards, analytics, and continuous quality improvement essential for science and data to drive practice
- Social determinant screening and assessment
- The personal, societal, economic, and common sense benefits of addressing the root causes of poverty and guiding people to self-sufficiency
Dr. Wilson’s standard-of-care model, Transition to Success, is currently being integrated and evaluated across the country, serving thousands living in poverty and establishing statistically significant outcomes.
About Marcella Wilson:
Marcella Wilson, Ph.D. has more than 30 years of experience in healthcare administration, nonprofit management, behavioral health, criminal justice, and public-sector programming. Her multiple degrees include a Ph.D. in Health and Higher Education. Most recently, as president of Matrix Human Services in Detroit, Dr. Wilson focused on developing a national standard of care to treat the condition of poverty. She is now leading a national social change movement with a new standard of care, Transition to Success. Her work has been recognized with multiple prestigious awards and featured on CBS Evening News, in The New York Times, and by the Clinton Global Initiative.
