NEWS

By BLAKE ALLEN
UNC School of Public Health

CHAPEL HILL -- The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Public Health will host its eighth annual Summer Public Health Research Institute and Videoconference on Minority Health June 17-21.

The videoconference, which will feature a live webcast the first day, will emphasize issues and solutions related to collecting and analyzing data for racial and ethnic populations, studying the relationship between race and socioeconomic status, identifying and reducing barriers to conducting research in minority communities, and devising surveys to study minority populations and subpopulations.

"As our society and workforce become more diverse, health disparities are a major stumbling block to progress in our country," said Dr. Victor Schoenbach, associate professor of epidemiology in the UNC School of Public Health and director of the school’s Minority Health Project.

The project sponsors the videoconference with the Morgan State University Drug Abuse Research Program, led by Dr. Dorothy Browne, a member of the School of Public Health’s maternal and child health faculty on leave from UNC. Browne co-founded the annual institute at UNC in 1994 along with Drs. Trude Bennett and Lloyd Edwards, professors in the school’s departments of maternal and child health and biostatistics, respectively.

"We are excited about this partnership linking our rapidly developing disparities research program with the School of Public Health and its outstanding distance-learning capabilities," Browne said.

Areas of focus will include research toward the elimination of disparities; measurement of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status; methodological questions in research on Latino health; outcomes of care for black patients with high blood pressure; health of Asian-American youth; tobacco control in Indian communities; and models of community research.

Dr. Oscar A. Barbarin III will deliver the keynote address on Monday (June 17) at 3:05 p.m., examining the sources of disparity in academic and mental health outcomes. UNC’s Barbarin is the L. Richardson and Emily Preyer bicentennial distinguished professor for strengthening families at the School of Social Work and senior investigator for the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute. Barbarin’s presentation is one of two that will be webcast live.

A complete agenda is available at www.minority.unc.edu/institute/2002/agenda.htm.

Each year, the videoconference attracts researchers, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and public health professionals in universities, research organizations, government and community-based organizations. Sessions include time for participants to ask questions and join discussions via toll-free telephone, fax and e-mail.

The videoconference will originate from the UNC School of Public Health’s Mayes Telecommunications Center, 231 Rosenau Hall, and will be available nationally through participating satellite downlink sites. Participation is free at UNC and most download sites, but registration is required. More than 100 sites are registered thus far, representing nearly 40 states.

Co-sponsors for the videoconference include the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, and National Center for Infectious Diseases Office of Minority and Women’s Health; the UNC School of Public Health dean’s office and department of maternal and child health; the UNC Center for Health Statistics Research, which is housed in the School of Public Health; and the National Institute for Drug Abuse.

The UNC School of Public Health created the Minority Health Project in 1994 with funding from the National Center for Health Statistics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To learn more about the school or to tap into current seminars, lectures and webcasts on topics ranging from bioterrorism and genomics to prenatal health and health care financing, visit the school’s World Wide Web site at www.sph.unc.edu.

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(Allen, a recent graduate of the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is from Elizabethtown, N.C.)

Note: Schoenbach can be reached at (919) 966-7439 or victor_schoenbach@unc.edu

School of Public Health contact: Lisa Katz at (919) 966-7467 or lisa_katz@unc.edu

News Services contact: Deb Saine at (919) 962-8415