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Alumni Day 2006 Focuses on Health Disparities

	Separate and Unequal: Confronting Disparities in Health was the focus of Alumni Day 2006.

“A weak and inequitable health system is going to create poor health in our nation. We have a nation and a world in which health is deteriorating to the degree that it is definitely going to affect the future of this country and the world,” said Cynthia A. Gomez, Ph.D., Director of Health Equity Initiatives at San Francisco State University at the Yale School of Public Health Alumni Day on June 2.

Her keynote speech, “Separate and Unequal: Confronting Disparities in Health,” Gomez informed the audience that 46 million people are uninsured equaling the amount of people worldwide who are underinsured. Many diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, which face our society today, are preventable diseases. However, Gomez says that society is spending more money on treatment rather than on prevention.

Further discussion included race, ethnicity, and genetics, in “Understanding Human Genetic Variation: Implications for Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities,” given by Vence Bonham, Jr., J.D., Senior Advisor to the director on societal implications of genomics at the National Human Genome Research Institute. Bonham noted that the implications of race and ethnicity for public health and health care practitioners center on how research studies are designed, as well as how the results of such research are interpreted. “When you read the studies involving human genetic variation and disease risk—and those studies are coming out every day—what was the basis for choosing the population? How did the study define or categorize that population? What is the medical significance of the variation? What does it mean for health and disease?” he asked. “Race and ethnicity are important components of health in our society, but we have to be careful about how we use them.”

This year’s panel was moderated by Jeannette Ickovics, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology in the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology (CDE) and Director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Program at YSPH. Panelists included Beth A. Jones, M.P.H. ’86, Ph.D. ’93, associate professor of epidemiology in CDE, Harlan M. Krumholz, M.D., the Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Internal Medicine, professor of epidemiology and public health and co-director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, and Curtis L. Patton, Ph.D., professor emeritus of epidemiology.

Several people were awarded at the Alumni Day Luncehon. Irene Trowell-Harris, Ed.D., M.P.H. ‘73, director of the Northeast Regional Office of Healthcare Inspections, Office of the Inspector General, Department of Veterans Affairs, was named this year’s Distinguished Alumni. The Eric W. Mood Award was given to Elisabeth Schauer, M.P.H. ’96, director of Vivo International, a foundation that deals with mental health issues in communities affected by violence and conflict. The Emerging Majority Affairs Committee’s (EMAC) Health Equity Award was given to Katrina Clark, M.P.H. ‘71, executive director of the Fair Haven Community Health Center in New Haven, received for her leadership in promoting community health in New Haven. Curtis L. Patton, Ph.D., received the 2006 Award for Excellence for his 36-year service to YSPH and the university.

—Story by John Curtis