Minority health videoconference to focus on educational inequities and health disparities

The 15th annual Summer Public Health Research Videoconference on Minority Health will be broadcast live online June 9, from 1:30 to 4 p.m., in 136 Tate-Turner-Kuralt Bldg. on the campus of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sponsors of the event, titled “Breaking the Cycle: Investigating the Intersection of Educational Inequities and Health Disparities,” include the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, the School’s Minority Health Project, and the university’s Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.

Howard Lee

Registered satellite downlink sites are available at 27 sites in 15 states across the country. Participation is free, but registration is required. A list of videoconference sites and registration information are available at www.minority.unc.edu.

Howard Lee, MSW, executive director of the N.C. Education Cabinet, past chair of the N.C. Board of Education, and former mayor of Chapel Hill, N.C., will serve as moderator for a panel of presenters, which includes:

• Reginald Weaver, vice president of Education International and past president of the National Education Association;
• Dina C. Castro, MPH, PhD, scientist at UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute
• Nicholas Freudenberg, DrPH, distinguished professor and director of the doctor of public health program in the Program in Urban Public Health, Hunter College School of Health Sciences, City University of New York; and
• Lillian A. Sparks, JD, executive director of the National Indian Education Association.

The panel will discuss ways in which socio-economic status affects education and health.

“The interaction between health status and child development has been well documented,” Castro says in her presentation abstract. “Conditions such as low birth weight, malnutrition and illnesses in the early years of life have been found to be associated with physical and cognitive development delays, and later low academic achievement.”

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For more information about the videoconference or to register, visit www.minority.unc.edu.

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.