David Olawuyi Fakunle, Ph.D. is a “mercenary for change,” employing any skill and occupying any space to help elevate everyone divested from their truest self, especially those who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color. David serves as Assistant Professor in the Public Health Program at the Morgan State University School of Community Health & Policy, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine, and Associate Faculty in the Mental Health department of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. David’s interests include stressors within the built environment, societal manifestations of racism, and the use of arts and culture to strengthen health, equity and ultimately, liberation.

Additionally, David has applied artistic and cultural practices such as Black storytelling, African drumming, singing and theater in the proclamation of truth for over 20 years, collaborating primarily with organizations in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. region. Among many affiliations, David is co-founder and CEO of DiscoverME/RecoverME, an organization that utilizes the African oral tradition to empower use of storytelling for healing and growth, serves as Executive Director of WombWork Productions, a Baltimore-based social change performing arts company, and serves as Chair of the Maryland Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first state-level commission in the U.S. dedicated to chronicling and bringing justice to racial terror lynchings.

Publications

Fakunle D. Storytelling as liberatory practice. Films for the Feminist Classroom. 2022 Dec 12;11(2). http://ffc.twu.edu/issue_11-2/feat_Fakunle_11-2.html

Kong AY, Herbert L, Feldman JM, Trangenstein PJ, Fakunle DO, Lee JGL. Tobacco and alcohol retailer availability and neighborhood racialized, economic, and racialized economic segregation in North Carolina. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2022. doi: 10.1007/s40615-022-01463-8

Han H, Byiringiro S, Lacanieta C…Fakunle D. Storytelling training to promote stakeholder engagement in research dissemination. J Clin Transl Sci. 2021 Aug 9;6(1):e5. doi: 10.1017/cts.2021.830. PMID: 35211332; PMCID: PMC8826007.

Fakunle DO, Thomas D, Gonzales KAM, Vidot DC, Johnson LP.  What Anansi did for us: Storytelling’s value in equitably exploring public health. Health Educ Behav. 2021;48(3):352-360. doi: 10.1177/10901981211009741.

Purnell TS, Fakunle DO, Bone L, Johnson TP, Hemberger N, Pitts SJ, et al. Overcoming barriers to sustaining health equity interventions: Insights from the National Institutes of Health Centers for Population Health and Health Disparities. J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2019;30(3):1212-1236. doi: 10.1353/hpu.2019.0083.

Fakunle DO, Curriero FC, Leaf PJ, Furr-Holden DM, Thorpe Jr RJ. Black, white, or green? The effects of racial composition and socioeconomic status on neighborhood-level tobacco outlet density. Ethn Health. 2019 May 24:1-16. doi: 10.1080/13557858.2019.1620178.

Fakunle DO, Thorpe Jr RJ, Furr-Holden CDM, Curriero FC, Leaf PJ. Does tobacco outlet inequality extend to high-White Mid-Atlantic jurisdictions? A study of socioeconomic status and density. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2019 Apr;6(2):409-418. doi: 10.1007/s40615-018-00538-9. Epub 2018 Nov 16.

Fakunle DO, Eck R, Milam AJ, Thorpe, Jr. RJ, Furr-Holden CDM. E-cigarettes in Baltimore alcohol outlets: Geographic and demographic correlates of availability. Fam Community Health. 2018 Oct/Dec;41(4):205-213. doi: 10.1097/FCH.0000000000000200.

Fakunle DO, Milam AJ, Furr-Holden CDM, Butler III J, Thorpe RJ Jr., LaVeist TA. The inequitable distribution of tobacco outlet density: The role of income in two black Mid-Atlantic geopolitical areas. Public Health. 2016;136:35-40. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2016.02.032.

Furr-Holden CD, Milam AJ, Nesoff ED, Johnson RM, Fakunle DO, Jennings JM, Thorpe RJ Jr. Not in My Back Yard: A Comparative Analysis of Crime Around Publicly Funded Drug Treatment Centers, Liquor Stores, Convenience Stores, and Corner Stores in One Mid-Atlantic City. J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2016;77(1):17-24. http://dx.doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2016.77.17.

Smiley C, Fakunle DO. From “brute” to “thug:” The demonization and criminalization of unarmed Black male victims in America. J Hum Behav Soc Environ. 2016;26(3-4):350-366. doi: 10.1080/10911359.2015.1129256.

Kinlock BL, Thorpe RJ, Howard D, Bowie JV, Ross LE, Fakunle DO, LaVeist TA. Racial disparity in the time between being diagnosed and initial treatment of prostate cancer. Cancer Control. 2016;23(1):47-51.

Fakunle DO. E-cigarettes in Baltimore alcohol outlets: Geographic and demographic correlates of availability. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2015;156:e65–e66. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.07.1097.

Acheampong A, Striley CW, Fakunle DO, Cottler L. Sex, drugs, and violence: An analysis of women in drug court. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2015;156:e2–e3. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2015.07.925.

Fakunle DO, Milam AJ, Furr-Holden CD. Income variability by race in tobacco outlet density in Maryland. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2015;(146): e274. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2014.09.211.

Fakunle D, Morton CM, Peterson NA. The importance of income in the link between tobacco outlet density and demographics at the tract level of analysis in New Jersey. J Ethn Subst Abuse. 2010;9(4):249-59. doi: 10.1080/15332640.2010.522890.