Our Story
Years of Advocacy. A Growing Mission.
Truth in Health didn't begin with an organization, a website or an event. Its roots reach back more than a decade to grassroots health advocacy in Oklahoma and a belief that patients, physicians and communities deserve a meaningful voice in health.
Where It Began
Grassroots Advocacy in Oklahoma
The roots of Truth in Health can be traced to the grassroots health and patient advocacy movement in Oklahoma.
In 2014, Cindy and Chip Paul helped found Oklahomans for Health, working alongside patients, advocates, physicians, volunteers and other grassroots organizations seeking to establish legal access to medical cannabis in Oklahoma.
That work eventually contributed to the citizen-led effort behind State Question 788. The measure was shaped by many voices across Oklahoma. Chip Paul served as its principal drafter, coordinating input, revising language and working among the individuals and organizations involved to help turn those perspectives into a ballot initiative.
What followed were years of conversations, interviews, petition drives, public education, legal challenges and grassroots organizing. In 2018, Oklahoma voters approved SQ 788 and established the state's medical marijuana program.
But the work was always bigger than cannabis.
At its core, the movement raised much larger questions about patient access, physician-patient decision-making, medical freedom, health education and whether important information was reaching the people who needed it.
The Mission Expands
The Questions Got Bigger
The deeper the work went, the more it became clear that access was only part of the challenge. People also needed access to education — and health professionals needed opportunities to explore areas of science that were not always making their way into everyday health conversations.
From Advocacy to Education
Discovering a Much Larger Conversation
Medical cannabis advocacy opened the door to a much broader area of learning: the endocannabinoid system, or ECS.
The ECS is a widespread biological signaling system involved in maintaining homeostasis and regulating processes throughout the body. Yet education about the ECS and cannabinoid science has historically had a limited place in conventional health-professional education.
That raised an important question that would influence the work for years to come:
What important information exists in research and science but isn't consistently reaching health professionals, patients and communities?
Learning Through Collaboration
Bringing Science Into the Conversation
As the educational work expanded, relationships with researchers and health professionals helped deepen the conversation. Chip developed a working relationship with Dr. David Colby of the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy, including conversations around the ECS and the need for greater education in this emerging area of science.
Following the Biology
From the ECS to Nutrition
Understanding the ECS also led to deeper questions about nutrition. Endocannabinoid biology intersects with essential dietary fatty acids, bringing greater attention to omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, their balance in the diet and the relationship between the food supply and human biology.
From Biology to the Food System
Asking What's Happening Upstream
The questions eventually extended beyond individual health choices to the food system itself.
Chip later collaborated with physician and nutrition researcher Dr. Artemis P. Simopoulos on The Omega 3/6 Alarm, a white paper examining the imbalance of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids in the U.S. food supply and calling for greater research, professional education and public awareness.
It reinforced a lesson that had been developing throughout the journey: understanding health often requires looking upstream — at education, nutrition, food, access, research and the systems that connect them.
Education Became the Common Thread.
What began as advocacy for a particular issue had grown into something much broader: helping people understand their health, bringing overlooked questions into the conversation and connecting research, professional experience and community knowledge in ways people could actually use.
Why Truth in Health
The Next Chapter Needed a Bigger Table
Years of advocacy and education revealed something important: better health cannot be built by one profession, one organization, one treatment or one point of view. The people doing meaningful work need opportunities to find one another, share what they know and learn from the communities they serve.
A Community Takes Shape
Creating a Place for Connection
Truth in Health grew from a desire to create that kind of space in Oklahoma — a place where health professionals, educators, researchers, community organizations, businesses and everyday Oklahomans could come together around better health.
Along the way, another pattern had become difficult to ignore. Oklahoma already has knowledgeable people, valuable programs, community resources and innovative ideas. But those people and resources do not always know about one another, and useful information does not always travel easily between research, professional practice and the community.
Truth in Health was created to help strengthen those connections.
We don't have to have every answer to help move health forward.
Sometimes the most important work is bringing the right people together, asking better questions and helping useful knowledge and resources reach the people who need them.
What That Looks Like Today
Education. Connection. Listening. Collaboration.
Educate
Create opportunities for people to learn from knowledgeable voices through community programs, professional conversations, articles, media and educational events.
Connect
Help health professionals, educators, organizations, businesses and community leaders discover one another and build relationships that might not otherwise happen.
Listen & Identify Gaps
Listen to practitioners and communities to better understand what is working, what is difficult to navigate and where information, resources or connections may be missing.
Collaborate
Bring people, expertise and existing resources together to create educational opportunities, partnerships and practical community action.
Education Is Still the Common Thread.
Truth in Health isn't built around telling people what to think about their health. We believe people are better equipped to participate in their own health decisions when they can ask questions, encounter knowledgeable perspectives, understand available resources and have meaningful conversations with qualified professionals.
Where We Go From Here
The Story Is Still Being Written.
Truth in Health was shaped by years of advocacy, questions, education and collaboration — but where it goes next will be shaped by many more voices.
Physicians, health professionals, educators, researchers, farmers and producers, nonprofit organizations, businesses, community leaders and everyday Oklahomans all bring experiences and perspectives that can help us better understand health in our communities.
We Don't Expect Everyone at the Table to Agree.
We do believe there is value in bringing people together who are willing to listen, share what they know, ask thoughtful questions and remain open to learning from one another. Better conversations can reveal resources, identify barriers, challenge assumptions and create connections that would not happen otherwise.
Better health takes more than information.
It takes connection.
That's the work we're building together through Truth in Health.
Your Place at the Table
Be Part of What's Next.
You don't need to have all the answers. Bring your experience, your questions, your expertise or simply your desire to learn and connect.