Geographic Health Equity Symposium: “Where You Live Matters to Your Health”

Hosted by: Geographic Health Equity Alliance operated by CADCA
Date: Friday, July 25, 2014, 9:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Location: Wyndham Grand Orlando Resort Bonnet Creek Hotel, 14651 Chelonia Parkway, Orlando, Florida
Cost to attend: FREE, Preregistration Required

Attendees of the symposium will:
• Understand and define a geographic health disparity.
• Understand the factors that lead to geographic health disparities.
• Understand key geographic health disparities in tobacco and cancer.
• Understand how to use and implement the Community Commons maps as a resource.
• Understand and utilize the Geographic Health Equity Alliance and its national network
partners as a resource to address cancer and tobacco related disparities in their communities.

CEU credits and contact hours are available.

To register and find out more about this event, click here. 

National Conference on Tobacco and Behavioral Health – May 19-20, 2014; Bethesda, Maryland

The goal of this conference is to provide a platform for attendees to share their perspectives on how the health system working collaboratively can decrease these statistics. Focusing on integration, interventions, and the impact of the ACA (insurance), participants will have the opportunity to hear from and exchange ideas with national leaders, public health cessation experts, policy makers, researchers, and behavioral health prevention and treatment experts on current cessation activities.

To find out more and to register, visit the conference website. 
 

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12th Annual Health Disparities in America Conference “Working Toward Social Justice”

 

June 23 – 28, 2014
Houston, Texas

 

The 12th Annual conference will be held at Prairie View A & M University College of Nursing at the Texas Medical Center. This year’s opening keynote speaker will be the Honorable Louis W. Sullivan, former Secretary of Health & Human Services on the morning of June 23rd, 2014. The introduction to the conference will made by Dr. Robert Robbins, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Texas Medical Center.

To learn more about this conference and to register, click here.

Warner Series Lecture: Moving Towards Tobacco-Related Health Equity – What Will It Take?

Posted at http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,

Legacy will host a special panel discussion that puts a spotlight on social determinants of tobacco use and diseases and deaths caused by tobacco. They have invited a distinguished group of speakers who will discuss the disproportionate impact of tobacco and barriers to health on communities based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status (SES) and more, and will help identify strategies to tackle tobacco-related health inequities. More information can be found HERE.    

When: Thursday, August 15, 2013 from 12:00-2:00 pm Eastern Time

To attend in person: Register  HERE

Location: Legacy 1724 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC 20036

To attend via webcast: Click here to view the webcast 

For more information, please contact Laura Cruzada at lcruzada@legacyforhealth.org or 202-341-0324

Post from Dr. Scout and Network for LGBT Equity

Network Changes: Saying Goodbye to Gustavo & Taking a Staff Break

As I’ve mentioned before, we’ve now hit the funding gap between the current and the next health disparity network awards. As of tomorrow, the Network will no longer be staffed until we hear (hopefully!) that we’ve been chosen as one of the next round of disparity networks. We expect this news to come in one to two months. Until then, Scout, the stalwart Steering Committee, and Daniella will be checking in every so often to keep the dust from gathering. This Network started with the efforts of amazing volunteers, so this is just a bit of going back to our roots. Good news is we think we’ve submitted a very strong proposal for the next round of funding so are optimistic we’ll be restaffed in a month or two.

Sadder news for us is our project manager, the amazing Gustavo Torrez, has decided he’s heading off for firmer ground. I don’t think there’s a person who’s interacted with the Network who could fail to realize just what a gem Gustavo is. He’s been in tobacco control since he was 12 years old! He’s long been a fearless youth advocate, is a force of nature when he presents, and can make hugely complicated events like our summit come off so smoothly we almost forget how hard we worked before he came on board. We shall miss Gustavo dearly, but we have faith he will stay one of the leaders to watch in tobacco control.

Changes aren’t always easy, but hold tight, the Network is much more than a few staff, plus we’re planning some great new things come Fall.

IHA Health Literacy Conference Features Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes Leaders

Reposted at http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,
The Institute for Healthcare Advancement will hold its12th Annual Health Literacy Conference May 8-10 in Irvine, California and Alliance program leaders from Chicago, Dallas and Memphis as well as the Alliance’s program evaluator RTI International will participate.

Click here to register and use the discount code ARDD13to receive a $50 discount on the registration cost.

See below for highlights of the Chicago and Dallas poster presentations. Make sure to visit the Alliance’s Twitter and Facebook pages for more information and to share your thoughts. Stay tuned for our next E-Blast that will feature the presentations from the Memphis program and RTI International.

Dallas Program Addresses Health Literacy Outside the Doctor's Office With Community Health Workers (CHWs)   The Alliance’s Dallas program, the Diabetes Equity Project (DEP), aims to reduce disparities in diabetes care and diabetes outcomes in the largely Hispanic, medically underserved communities surrounding Baylor Health Care System hospitals. CHWs work to extend the patient-provider relationship and increase access to health services and education. Initial program results show that DEP patients had significantly higher scores on the Perceived Competence Scale in Diabetes (PCSD) one year post-baseline. The high rates of success in the program indicate that the use of CHWs to coordinate care and provide diabetes education to underserved populations could be an effective model for use with similar populations in other cities.

Read Dallas’ IHA abstract submission here for more information on the use of CHWs to improve health outcomes in underserved populations.

Chicago Program to Present Poster at IHA on Benefits of Combining Tailored Education and Shared Decision-Making  Leaders from the Chicago program have teamed up with local community health centers and community partners to empower patients to better manage their diabetes. The intervention addresses two well-known barriers facing racial/ethnic populations and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds: limited health literacy and lack of cultural tailoring of programs. The program consists of 10-sessions co-taught by nurses, diabetes educators and dieticians, and program participants showed improvements in diabetes self management skills and clinical measures.

Read the IHA abstract submission here for more information on the Diabetes Empowerment Program.

About the Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes The Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes, a national program launched and supported by the Merck Foundation, works to improve health care delivery among those populations most at risk for diabetes – African-American, Hispanic/Latino and Native American adults. The five health care delivery sites that comprise the Alliance to Reduce Disparities in Diabetes have implemented multifaceted evidence-based approaches designed to eliminate gaps produced by inequity and lack of targeted attention to those adults and their families who are most likely to be severely burdened by diabetes.

The Center for Managing Chronic Disease | University of Michigan  1415 Washington Heights | Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 | 734-763-1457