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Webcast: NIH Director Zerhouni and IOM President Fineberg to discuss health disparities

While researchers have noted social disparities in health for decades, the subject was not a focus of mainstream scientific and policymaking efforts in the U.S. until the last decade. In 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released the report "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities," (http://www.iom.edu/), which revealed that minorities tend to receive lower-quality health care than whites do, even when insurance status, income, age and severity of conditions are comparable.

In 2003, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revealed its Roadmap for Medical Research (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/). With an emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, the Roadmap has funded the creation of a center on health disparities and pregnancy outcomes and has called for professional training of future clinical research leaders from diverse backgrounds. HSPH has received Roadmap funding for an interdisciplinary training program focused on gene-environment interactions in complex diseases--such as the cluster of metabolic diseases that involve obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, some of which disproportionately affect minority groups.

Speakers will describe how their institutes have created new opportunities for research and what kinds of barriers they have experienced.

Speakers:
Elias Zerhouni, Director, U.S. National Institutes of Health
John Frank, Scientific Director, Institute of Population and Public Health, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Mirta Roses Periago, Director, Pan American Health Organization Sujatha Rao, Member Secretary, National Commission on Macroeconomics an
d Health, India

Discussant:
Harvey Fineberg, President, Institute of Medicine, and Former Dean, Harvard School of Public Health

Moderator:
Lisa Berkman, HSPH Professor of Public Policy

Q&A Panelists:
Howard Koh, Associate Dean for Public Health Practice, HSPH, and Former Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health; JudyAnn Bigby, Director of Community Health Programs, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Christopher Murray, Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Policy at HSPH and Director of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health; Atul Gawande, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Maria Glymour, Research Associate, HSPH Department of Society, Human Development, and Health

Media who would like to attend should contact Christina Roache at croache@hsph.harvard.edu or at 617-432-6052.

Organized by the HSPH Working Group on Health Disparities
Sponsors: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Harvard Center for Society and Health
Co-Sponsors: Boston Public Health Commission; Cherishing Our Hearts and Souls Coalition; Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center--Cancer Disparities Program-in-Development; François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard School of Public Health; Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention; Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity and Community Partnership; Institute on Urban Health Research, Northeastern University; Massachusetts Department of Public Health; Massachusetts Public Health Association; Program in Ethics and Health, Harvard Medical School; Program for Health Systems Improvement, Harvard University; and the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University

Harvard School of Public Health is dedicated to advancing the public's health through learning, discovery, and communication. More than 300 faculty members are engaged in teaching and training the 900-plus student body in a broad spectrum of disciplines crucial to the health and well being of individuals and populations around the world. Programs and projects range from the molecular biology of AIDS vaccines to the epidemiology of cancer; from risk analysis to violence prevention; from maternal and children's health to quality of care measurement; from health care management to international health and human rights. For more information on the school visit: www.hsph.harvard.edu.

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