America's Healthiest City

About America's Healthiest City

America's Healthiest City is a podcast about how Richmond, VA, is building a healthier community — one initiative, one leader, one idea at a time. Hosted by Will Melton, each episode goes inside the people and programs reshaping Richmond's approach to health: the local leaders driving change, the solutions working on the ground, and the practical steps you can take to make a difference where you live. From food access and mental health to fitness, healthcare, and the systems that connect them, the show looks at what a healthy city actually requires — and who's doing the work. If you care about Richmond and want to understand what moves the needle on community health, this is your show. Learn more at americashealthiestcity.com (https://americashealthiestcity.com) or subscribe at channelrva.com/shows/americas-healthiest-city (https://channelrva.com/shows/americas-healthiest-city). Instagram: @americashealthiestcity (https://instagram.com/americashealthiestcity) America's Healthiest City is a production of Channel RVA.

Publisher

Channel RVA

Category

health & fitness · health & fitness · health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Jan 2023

Latest episode

19 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

95 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   19 Oct 2026

   Flowers As An Equalizer: Nitika Achalam, True Grit Farm and Flower

   America’s Healthiest City exists to track a ten-year partnership working to make the greater Richmond region the healthiest in America by 2033. Host Will Melton sits down with people already doing that work, and this episode’s guest has spent more than two decades building hers in soil and breath. Richmond herbalist and flower farmer Nitika Achalam of True Grit Farm and Flower explains how plants and a single conscious breath rebuild connection in a region racing to get healthier. Nitika Acha...

2. 

   28 Sept 2026

   Vincent Vu, Kinis AI: From Barefoot Running To High Tech Balance Checks

   Fall prevention has a new tool: a smartphone camera. Vincent Vu, founder of Kinis AI, demos the balance test built to catch instability weeks before it becomes a fall. Falling gets treated like an inevitable part of aging, but the CDC numbers Vu found tell a different story. Falls are the leading cause of injury death for adults over 65, cost the U.S. $80 billion a year, and result in a hip fracture for 95% of people who experience one after 65. Vu founded Kinis AI to move fall prevention fro...

3. 

   1 Sept 2026

   Turning Grief Into Hope: Erin Gallagher and The Jaywalkers Challenge

   Erin Gallagher became one of Richmond's leading voices on suicide prevention after her 18-year-old son, Jay, died by suicide in 2016, with no prior diagnosis and no warning signs anyone recognized in time. On this episode of America's Healthiest City, host Will Melton sits down with Gallagher, founder of Jay Walkers, to talk about grief, stigma, and the prevention tools most families have never heard of. Gallagher walks through the year everything changed: moving her family to Richmond, leavi...

Who has been a guest on America's Healthiest City

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Rochelle Sommer
• Melissa Ambrose
• David Ambrose
• Greta Harris

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

9,290

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Podcast Authority Score: 53 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

60

Social presence

91

YouTube

68

Engagement

0