Alum is leading advocacy run for health equity

Dennis Godby, ND, ’79, founder of Walk USA for Health Equity, will be completing the final stretch of the walk Aug. 24-Sept. 24. The walk, created to call attention to preventable health disparities and the social, economic and structural conditions that shape who can live a healthy life, began on the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk in South Carolina. He invites alumni and supporters to join the walk for its final mile and public arrival in Seattle on September 24.

Dr. Godby's lifelong commitment to preventive medicine, running and health equity began at Oregon State University. As a student studying exercise physiology, he says he learned that movement, nutrition, prevention and social responsibility are inseparable. In 1978, while still a student in Corvallis, he participated in his first long-distance advocacy solo run — 1,420 miles from Corvallis to Calgary, Canada—to promote exercise and healthy living. Nearly five decades later, that same OSU foundation continues to animate Walk USA for Health Equity.

"Oregon State University has also shaped my family across generations,” he says. "Both of my sons attended OSU, and in 2014, while they were students, Jeremiah and Isaiah Godby ran around the state of Oregon to promote the OSU College of Public Health and Human Sciences (now the College of Health), engaging communities statewide around physical activity, prevention and public health awareness. Jeremiah is now a naturopathic medical student in Portland, continuing this family commitment to preventive medicine and public health.”