Campus News

Symposium to address ways to bridge global health care

Symposium to address ways to bridge global health care

The College of Public Health and the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute will host the second annual Global Health Symposium, “Social Determinants of Inequalities in Health II: Continuing the Global Conversation,” March 24-25 at the Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences. Registration is $15; it is open to the public.

Co-sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Health Scholars Program, the event will bring together national and international public health experts to gain a better understanding of how ­socio-economic status, ­socio-political environment, race and ethnicity contribute to inequalities in health across the globe.

“This meeting represents the college’s first step toward future collaborations on understanding the social determinants of inequalities in health with researchers from abroad, in conjunction with the W.K. Kellogg Health Scholars program,” said Dionne Godette, assistant professor of health promotion and behavior in the College of Public Health. A former Kellogg Health Disparities Scholar, Godette is chair of the symposium planning committee.

“We are looking forward to hosting current and former Health Scholars as well as representatives from federal, state and local organizations concerned with fostering change around inequities in health,” she added.

Panel discussions and presentations during the afternoon programs will target issues ranging from international to national and state-level health inequalities as well as the impact of discrimination on health access, human rights and immigrant health.

Dr. Ichiro Kawachi, professor of social epidemiology and chair of the department of society, human development and health at the Harvard School of Public Health, will deliver the keynote address, “Social Determinants of Health Inequities: The Global Problem,” at 2:30 p.m. on March 24.

Kawachi has published more than 350 papers and several books on the social and economic determinants of population health. He also serves as the editor of the social epidemiology section of the international journal Social Science & Medicine