Rescheduled minority health conference to focus on ways 'built environment' influences health
| February 07, 2005 | |
| CHAPEL HILL — The intersection of health and the “built environment” will be the focus of the 26th Annual Minority Health Conference, scheduled for Feb. 25 and sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health.Titled “Health and the Built Environment: The Effects of Where We Live, Work and Play,” this conference is a rescheduling of last year’s event, which was canceled due to the threat of adverse weather. The location is UNC’s William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.
School of Public Health students are organizing the event. “The built environment has powerful ramifications for public health because it literally surrounds us,” said Danielle Spurlock, conference co-chair and a master’s degree student in city and regional planning in the College of Arts and Sciences and in the School of Public Health’s department of health behavior and health education. “Increased rates of cancer, asthma, diabetes and other environmentally sensitive conditions are the readily apparent effects of the built environment on human health. This year’s conference brings together community members, public health practitioners, public health researchers, educators, land use planners and industry officials to better understand and address these man-made threats to public health.” Conference sessions will explore how housing, land use patterns, transportation infrastructure and industrial and business corridors affect health, disease rates, physical activity and quality of life. Dr. Henry Louis Taylor Jr. will deliver the day’s William T. Small Jr. Keynote Lecture. Taylor directs the Center for Urban Studies at the University at Buffalo and also is an urban and regional planning professor in the university’s School of Architecture and Planning. His research focuses on black residential development and American urban history, and he has a special interest in how race, class and gender shape the urban environment and community development. The keynote address, which begins at 9:30 a.m., will be taped for broadcast via satellite from Chapel Hill and over the Web at 2 p.m. Session topics for the day include “Chemical Exposure and Farmworker Health,” “Transportation Corridors and the Spread of Disease,” “The Health Implications of Affordable Housing and Housing Segregation” and “Obesity, Physical Activity and the Built Environment.” For registration information and details on satellite and Web broadcasts, visit http://www.minority.unc.edu/sph/minconf/2005 or call (919) 966-4032. The event is the oldest student-organized minority health conference nationwide and is coordinated by a team of organizations and programs of UNC’s School of Public Health: the Minority Student Caucus, the Student Union Board, the Minority Health Project and the N.C. Institute for Public Health.
Note: Spurlock can be reached at (919) 360-0710 or dspurloc@email.unc.edu. N.C. Institute for Public Health contact: Beverly Holt, (919) 966-6274 or bev_holt@unc.edu For further information please contact Emily Smith either by phone at 919.966.8498 or by email at emily_smith@unc.edu |
