Congressional Minority Caucus members to participate in upcoming videoconference

June 17, 2004

CHAPEL HILL — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health will host the 10th annual Summer Public Health Research Videoconference on Minority Health Monday (June 21) through Thursday (June 24), featuring four members of the Congressional Minority Caucus in the opening session.The live interactive videoconference, held from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. EDT daily, brings together researchers, public health practitioners, policy analysts, faculty, students and others nationwide interested in health research topics specific to minority populations.More than 90 sites in 34 states and on the Internet have signed up to receive the broadcast transmission from the UNC School of Public Health’s Mayes Telecommunications Center. The list of sites and all other information are available at http://www.minority.unc.edu/institute/2004/.

Chapel Hill-area residents may watch the broadcasts at the Mayes Center. Selected sessions are available for viewing on the Internet.

Monday’s broadcast will be a moderated panel discussion, transmitted from the U.S. House recording studio on Capitol Hill, with caucus members exploring health care (including language, insurance and health-care infrastructure barriers), cultural competency and diversity among the health-care work force, policy issues affecting health disparities, and research and data needs to address health-care inequalities.

These four topics have been identified by the Institute of Medicine and addressed in the Healthcare Equality and Accountability Act and the Closing the Health Care Gap Act of 2004.

Four researchers will form a “reactor” panel at the School of Public Health. Viewers may also call or e-mail questions for caucus representatives and researchers.

“The congressional session will enable a dialogue between members of Congress and researchers to explore ways that research can become codified into policy more quickly and thus have greater impact,” said Dr. Victor J. Schoenbach, associate professor of epidemiology in UNC’s School of Public Health and director of the school’s Minority Health Project.

Caucus members participating in Monday’s broadcast are Rep. Donna M. Christensen of the U.S. Virgin Islands, representing the Congressional Black Caucus; Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, representing the Congressional Native American Caucus; Rep. Hilda Solis of California, representing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; and Rep. Madeleine Z. Bordallo of Guam, representing the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Stephanie L. Crayton, UNC Health Care media relations manager and a former television medical reporter, will moderate the panel.

Researchers on Monday’s UNC-based “reactor” panel are Annice Eu-Shin Kim, a health behavior and health education doctoral candidate in UNC’s School of Public Health; Dr. Bill Jenkins, research professor of public health and associate director of the Research Center on Health Disparities at Morehouse College in Atlanta; Dr. Jennie R. Joe, a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and director of the Native American Research and Training Center at the University of Arizona in Tucson; and Dr. Fernando Wagner, deputy director of the Morgan-Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

The Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday broadcasts will focus on origins of health disparities, and the research methods and applications related to this issue.

The 2004 videoconference is presented by the UNC Program on Ethnicity, Culture, and Health Outcomes’ Minority Health Project and the Morgan-Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions.

Major funding is provided by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention and the National Center for Infectious Diseases’ Office of Minority and Women’s Health) through a cooperative agreement with the Association of Schools of Public Health. Additional funding has been provided by the Duke Energy Foundation and UNC units including the departments of epidemiology, health behavior and health education, and maternal and child health in UNC’s School of Public Health; and the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.

The School of Public Health created the Minority Health Project in 1994 with funding from the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Note: Contact Schoenbach at (919) 966-7436 or vjs@unc.edu.

UNC School of Public Health contact: Emily Smith, (919) 966-8498 or emilysmith@unc.edu

UNC News Services contact: Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu