Uché Blackstock
Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, Uché Blackstock is an emergency physician, health equity advocate, and New York Times bestselling author focused on structural racism in medicine, equitable care delivery, institutional trust, and the implications of new technologies such as AI in health and medical education.
Trust-Building Was Framed as Funded, Measurable Community Work
The 2026 Trust in Practice Summit highlights present trust-building as practical civic work that needs funding, tools, measurement, and local leadership, not simply a sentiment to be restored. Hosted in Chicago by the Alliance for Social Trust in partnership with Allstate, the summit convened more than 250 leaders and announced $1 million, $500,000, and $100,000 awards to 11 nonprofit collaborations across 10 states. Speakers argued that institutions should support community leaders, measure trust at a local level, and focus on the ordinary problem-solving through which trust is built.
Trust in Practice Awards Fund 11 Local Trust-Building Collaborations
The 2026 Trust in Practice Summit, convened in Chicago by the Alliance for Social Trust with the Aspen Institute and Allstate, presented trust-building as practical local work that requires funding, measurement, institutional listening and community relationships. Speakers including Daniel Porterfield, Tom Wilson and others argued that pluralism and institutional trust depend less on national messaging than on leaders embedded in communities, while the summit’s awards and Trust Map were offered as tools to support that work.