Darity and Aiello to discuss minority health at UNC’s 36th annual student-led conference

February 20, 2015

“Reaching for the American Dream: Economic Mobility and Minority Health” is the theme of UNC’s 36th annual UNC Minority Health Conference, to be held Friday, Feb. 27 at UNC’s William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education, in Chapel Hill, N.C.

The UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and the School’s Minority Student Caucus will host the event, which in years past has drawn more than 500 people to see its two keynote lectures live and many more to see webcasts of the event.

Dr. William Darity

Dr. Allison Aiello

This year’s conference features William A. (Sandy) Darity Jr., PhD, Samuel Du Bois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African-American Studies, and Economics, and director of the Consortium on Social Equity at Duke University, who will give the 17th annual William T. Small Keynote in the morning; and Allison E. Aiello, PhD, professor of epidemiology at the Gillings School, giving the fourth annual Victor J. Schoenbach Keynote in the afternoon.

Darity’s lecture also will be available by webcast in the afternoon, after which he will answer live questions from the viewing audience. Registration for the webcast is still available online.

Small-group sessions between the two lectures will address topics including refugee health, e-health, migrant farmworkers, the prison population, and the impact of income disparities upon mental health, among others.

The annual conference was launched in 1977 by the UNC public health school’s Minority Student Conference to highlight health issues of concern to people of color. The longest-running student-led health conference in the country, the UNC conference now partners with eight other U.S. universities, who broadcast the annual William T. Small Keynote Lecture during their minority health conferences. The University of Illinois at Chicago has partnered longest; this year will be the seventh UIC Minority Health in the Midwest Conference.

Elena Rivera (left) and May Chen, co-chairs for the planning of this year’s Minority Health Conference, discuss conference details.

Health behavior students May Chen (doctoral candidate) and Elena Rivera (master’s program) have led the planning for and execution of the conference this year.

“We really wanted to choose a timely theme – something that would interest a wide audience,” Chen said. “We know that the idea of economic mobility will be relevant for people in the fields of public health, policy, economics, social justice and medicine. This year’s conference presentations will look at health disparities in the aftermath of the Great Recession and will highlight opportunities to improve minority health as the U.S. emerges from that recession.”

Both student leaders said that being a conference co-chair is a great honor and a great responsibility.

“It’s daunting to think about continuing the conference’s legacy, but it’s also exciting,” Rivera said. “We get to work with an incredible group of individuals – students, faculty members and others – who have so much passion and energy to contribute. It’s really special to observe the collaboration and take part in how the planning unfolds.”