PLENARY SESSION II: PROMOTING EQUITY AND DECREASING DISPARITIES THROUGH OPTIMIZING PREVENTION SCIENCE

This invited plenary features three prominent scholars who will describe their unique perspective to promote health equity and decrease health disparities by investing in communities and intervening at different ecological levels. The plenary begins with Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and patient and community advocate, and the Commissioner of Health for the City of Baltimore. She will discuss her ongoing efforts to utilize public health as an instrument to catalyze citywide change and as powerful tool for social justice. Through partnerships with businesses, criminal justice, housing, and other public and private partners, Dr. Wen takes a systems-wide perspective to reducing health disparities. Dr. Wen will discuss programs highlighted in “Healthy Baltimore 2020,” a strategic blueprint for health and wellness in Baltimore City, which aims to reduce health disparities in Baltimore by half over the next ten years. The report underscores the agency’s commitment to applying the lens of race, equity and inclusion to every aspect of its work. Next, Dr. Marc Atkins, Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Director of the Institute for Juvenile Research, will present his work with the State of Illinois, City of Chicago, families, and schools to combat educational and mental health disparities in youth. He will share a new model for mental health practice in urban communities that addresses long-standing disparities in mental health care by placing mental health providers in school and better aligning school and community mental health resources. He will share collaborative principles and ecological practices that advance a public health focus on children’s mental health while also reducing the burden on schools to maintain mental health services. Finally, Dr. Allison Barlow, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health will share her perspective in working with tribal communities and tribal families to develop, implement, and disseminate public health interventions to address behavioral and mental health disparities among Native children and families. These projects have spanned early childhood home-visiting to promote parenting and early child development and to address early childhood obesity; suicide, depression, and substance abuse prevention; adolescent obesity and diabetes prevention; and most recently, the promotion of youth entrepreneurship to address the twin problems of poverty and poor health trajectories. She will share evidence that supports the effectiveness of Native community health workers to promote behavioral and mental health, overcome access barriers in low income communities and build local human capital through an indigenous workforce. Each speaker will describe how research informs and is informed by their work. Together these presentations will illustrate strategies that can be applied across ecological levels to support equity and reduce disparities across diverse communities.

Chair: Kerry Green, PhD, University of Maryland

Organizers:

Kerry Green, PhD, University of Maryland (co-chair), Sharon Lambert, PhD, (co-chair), George Washington University, Crystal Barksdale, PhD, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Susan Breitenstein, PhD, RN, Rush University, Richard Catalano, PhD, University of Washington, Elizabeth Robertson, PhD, University of Alabama

Speakers:

Allison Barlow, PhD, The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

Marc Atkins, PhD, University of Illinois-Chicago, Institute for Juvenile Research

Leana S. Wen, MD, MSc, FAAEM, Baltimore City Health Department