December 4, 2025.  The nonprofit Plant-based Prevention Of Disease (P-POD) conference community is deeply saddened today by the passing of Dr. Dexter Shurney.  We speak often about ideals of aspiring to be change-makers and advocates, of pursuing not only a more healthful but also a more equitable society, of trying unapologetically to make unique contributions through one’s work.  It may be difficult to find anyone we know who more persistently and patiently sought to live out ideals like these in practical ways, than he did.

Our P-POD speaker bio of Dr. Shurney, at https://www.preventionofdisease.org/dexter-shurney, begins by calling him “a population health innovator responding to chronic disease and health disparities with workplace wellness incentives, food-as-medicine strategies and Blue Zones insights”, but that only scratched the surface.  He was a visionary who rolled up his sleeves and tried to convince institutions, often those one may expect to be unsympathetic or immovable, that when investment is made systematically in preventing disease and proactively nurturing health each day, everyone gains in the end, even financially.  He was probably the greatest champion of unleashing the untapped potential of what employers could do to promote employee health effectively, with their self-interested side-effect of higher productivity:  screen them for food insecurity;  give them grocery cards;  provide disease-preventive nutrition information;  counsel them about sleep needs;  facilitate easy ways to increase physical activity;  sponsor intensive lifestyle interventions in response to chronic disease presence or risk;  show them how an intervention-in-progress is already improving multiple health indicators so is worth continuing;  and more.

Dr. Shurney should certainly be regarded as one of the major architects contributing to the Lifestyle Medicine field as we know it today, not only during his three years as President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.  Part of that was developing substantive evidence that Lifestyle Medicine practices could newly become highly and measurably cost-effective components of healthcare activity implemented at the medical institution or employer levels, and recognizable at the insurer level, if skepticism were overcome.  He would seem also to have done more than any other individual to steer some attention of the Lifestyle Medicine movement toward disparities in care-access opportunities and health outcomes.  Health equity does not arise automatically, as a pursuit or as a result, in cardiology, in pediatrics, in nutrition, in Lifestyle Medicine, or in any other field, and must be sought after diligently and open-endedly as an ideal by advocates.  The Six Pillars do not mention health equity, but he inspired others to give voice to it and began building structures that could focus increased attention throughout all future years.

We were immensely grateful that Dr. Shurney brought his compelling insights to the P-POD Conferences, presenting about the economics of Food as Medicine, how large employers could be made receptive to Lifestyle Medicine as a value-based care model, how practitioner payment methods could be reorganized, and what a more nutrition-based healthcare future could look like, but due to illness this year he was unable to present about medical-institution roles needed in practitioner self-care and burnout prevention.  In the past he had participated in highly enriching interactive round table discussions with eminent colleagues such as Drs. Beth Frates and Saray Stancic, and regretfully his historically momentous duet discussion about health equity this year with Dr. Columbus Batiste was never to be.

More details about Dr. Shurney’s long and illustrious career are shown at https://www.preventionofdisease.org/dexter-shurney.  He was truly unique, enormously influential and irreplaceable.  We offer our sincere condolences to his family members and friends, and are thankful for his legacy.