U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to keynote UNC conference on health care

By JENA WITTKAMP
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- U.S. Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., D- Ill., will serve as keynote speaker at a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conference on inequalities in health-care access.

UNC’s Center for Civil Rights, a component of the School of Law, and the School of Public Health will bring together national experts in health care, civil rights, policy and law for the daylong event Nov. 1. More than 150 people are expected to attend.

The conference, titled "Mending the Health Care Divide: Eliminating Disparities in Access for Minority and Low Income Communities," will be held at the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education and is open to the public. The conference fee is $50 ($10 for students), and registration is due no later than Oct. 27. For more information, contact Allison Stelljes at (919) 843-3921 or stelljes@email.unc.edu.

The conference is geared to anyone interested in inequalities in access to health care. Scholars and researchers in public health, public policy and law; health care and community advocates; and medical and legal practitioners may find the event of particular interest.

Close to 44 million people nationwide did not have health insurance in 2002, representing an increase of 2.4 million from the previous year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported recently. In addition, many minority and low-income residents do not have adequate access to health care, studies have shown. The Nov. 1 conference will examine the forces that create and maintain patterns of unequal or inadequate health-care access for low-income and minority people statewide and nationally.

Jackson’s leadership created the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities at the National Institutes of Health in 2001, recognized by many minority health experts as the most important civil rights legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Jackson also secured funding for the Institute of Medicine’s 2002 report on health disparities, "Unequal Treatment." Jackson was elected to the U.S. House in 1995.

He has proposed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to health care and is a co-sponsor of a bill that would establish a single payer universal health care program.

Conference topics will include:

• "Inequality and Inequity: The Broader Causes of Health Disparities": This introductory panel will look beyond issues of access to examine the larger social causes of health disparities. The panel will explore what factors – environmental, economic, historic and cultural – determine disparities in health.
  
• "The Health Care ‘Safety Net’: Who Falls Through and Why?": This panel will examine the current state of the health care delivery system, especially the public hospitals, community health clinics, health departments and other institutions that care for low-income and uninsured patients. Panelists will discuss whether or not this network can provide health care for all who need it and what reforms would be required to fully address current disparities in access.
  
• "Removing Barriers I, II and III: Health System, Legal and Policy Responses to Disparities in Access": These three consecutive panels will look at solutions to reducing disparities from an array of perspectives and will seek to answer the questions: Can disparities be reduced through new health system approaches extending access to a greater number of patients? How can law be used to reduce obstacles to health care? Is litigation still a viable option or are there other more effective approaches? What are the larger political and legislative ideas for health care reform? How will these ideas, if implemented, affect minorities and low-income people? Is universal health care the way to go? Is it politically viable? What other solutions exist?
  

The UNC Center for Civil Rights is committed to the study of civil rights and social justice, especially in the American South. The School of Public Health is dedicated to protecting against threats to health, empowering people to lead healthier lives, improving the quality of health services and preparing leaders to advance health.

GlaxoSmithKline also provided funding for the conference. For more information, click on http://www.law.unc.edu/centers/civilrights/brochure.pdf.

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(Wittkamp, of Raleigh, is a senior majoring in women’s studies and journalism and mass communication.)

UNC Center for Civil Rights contact: Allison Stelljes, (919) 843-3921 or stelljes@email.unc.edu
UNC School of Public Health contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 966-7467 or lisa_katz@unc.edu