U.S. Rep. Watt to headline conference on minority health, health disparities

The UNC School of Public Health’s Minority Health Project and the Morgan-Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions – a collaboration between Morgan State and Johns Hopkins universities in Baltimore – will present the videoconference June 20-23 at UNC.

The opening panel discussion will be from 1:30-3:30 p.m. at UNC’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, off South Road just west of the Morehead-Patterson Bell Tower.

Sessions June 21-23, from 1:30-4:30 p.m. in Rosenau Hall off South Columbia Street, will feature presentations for researchers, public health practitioners, policy analysts, faculty, students and others from across the country.

Each year the conference is shared nationwide as a live, interactive satellite and Internet broadcast. In past years, more than 100 downlink sites and hundreds of Internet viewers have signed up to participate. The list of this year’s sites and other information are available at www.minority.unc.edu/institute/2005/.

Area residents are invited to attend the live broadcasts from the Stone Center and Rosenau. Admission is free, but registration is requested at the above Web site.

“We are excited to partner with the Stone Center for its first national broadcast and to present such a distinguished panel,” said Dr. Victor J. Schoenbach, associate professor of epidemiology in the UNC School of Public Health and director of its Minority Health Project.

“This year’s conference is dedicated to the memory of our longtime collaborator and friend Charles Blackmon,” he said. Blackmon, of Durham, a retired senior vice president of North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co., died May 6. His many leadership activities included chairing the Governor’s Task Force for a Healthy Carolina, which last year created a leadership award named in his honor.

The panelists at the Stone Center will explore policy initiatives and research needs to eliminate health disparities, which remain a major obstacle to controlling health care costs, improving productivity and raising the general level of health, said Dr. Joseph Jordan, center director and a professor of African and Afro-American studies. Viewers may call in or e-mail with questions. Besides Watt, panelists will be:

7 Gem Daus, policy director for the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum in Washington, D.C.;

7 Gary Grant, executive director of Concerned Citizens of Tillery (N.C.);

7 Carole Anne Heart, executive director of the Aberdeen Area Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board in Rapid City, S.D.;

7 Dr. Rosa Pirez Perdomo, Secretary of Health for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; and

7 Dr. Allan Noonan, director of the public health program at Morgan State.

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

Sessions the rest of the week will focus on health disparities research concerning American Indians and Pacific Islander Americans, as well as diabetes and behavioral HIV-prevention programs disseminated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Major funding for the conference is provided by the CDC, the School of Public Health dean’s office, and the Morgan-Hopkins Center. The UNC school created the Minority Health Project in 1994 with funding from the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

School of Public Health contacts: Dr. Victor Schoenbach, (919) 966-7436 or vjs@unc.edu

Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History contact: Damien Jackson, (919) 962-9001, dtjack@email.unc.edu

For further information please contact Ramona DuBose by email at ramona_dubose@unc.edu