The FINANCIAL — Georgia State University’s Center of Excellence for Health Disparities Research (CoEx) will host a summit on March 7 aimed at addressing the problems of health disparities in urban areas.
As Georgia State University said, the summit will be held in the Speaker’s Auditorium at the Georgia State Student Center, 44 Courtland St. N.E., from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The summit will include lectures by former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, Richard Rothenberg of Georgia State, Ana Diez-Roux of the University of Michigan, Jasjit Ahluwalia of the University of Minnesota and Richard Warnecke of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“Although significant reductions in mortality and morbidity and increases in life expectancy have been observed for most Americans, health disparities in mortality and morbidity persist, with gaps widening for some leading health indicators and populations,” said Erin Ruel, associate professor of sociology.
“Health disparities have been shown to be closely related to neighborhood environments and poverty conditions in urban areas. Our goal for the summit is to showcase national and local scholarship on understanding and ameliorating health disparities, as well as to begin forging a collaborative plan of action to reduce these disparities.”
Addressing problems of urban areas is a major focus of Georgia State’s new strategic plan. CoEx, funded by a $6.7 million grant from the National Institute of Minority Health and Disparities of the National Institutes of Health, is strategically placed to help meet that goal.
CoEx researchers include faculty and staff from the Institute of Public Health, the Center for Healthy Development and the Department of Sociology, in addition to faculty from the departments of African-American Studies, Geosciences and Criminal Justice.
CoEx’s research theme is to focus on the disparities or the multitude of health risk factors and influences that interact and cluster together in ways that worsen overall health.
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