Urban Universities for HEALTH Will Meet Oct. 6-7, 2014, to Examine Evidence-Based Approaches to Health-Care Disparities

Urban Universities for HEALTH will hold its fall 2014 national conference Monday, October 6, and Tuesday, October 7, at Cleveland State University.

The two-day event in the CSU Student Center is expected to draw more than 75 higher-education and health-care leaders for a series of presentations and discussions that will examine evidence-based approaches to health-care disparities.

Speakers will include Marc Nivet, chief diversity officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC); Akram Boutros, president and CEO of The MetroHealth System; and Julian Earls, executive in residence at CSU.

Also on the agenda:

• A “Shark Tank”-style competition in which five Urban Universities for HEALTH member teams will vie for a $15,000 prize (with judges from the Cleveland Foundation, Saint Luke’s Foundation, the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention);
• A bus tour of Cleveland neighborhoods that stand to benefit from improved health-care options.

CSU President Ronald M. Berkman, Ph.D., and Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) President Jay Gershen, D.D.S., Ph.D., will welcome conference attendees.

CSU and NEOMED are members of Urban Universities for HEALTH (Health Equity through Alignment, Leadership and Transformation of the Health Workforce). The NEOMED-CSU Partnership for Urban Health is dedicated to addressing the unique health-care needs of metropolitan areas, where concerns such as education, housing and income affect lives and access to healthy living. The partnership encourages students from Greater Cleveland to complete undergraduate and postgraduate coursework at CSU, enroll in the College of Medicine at NEOMED to earn a Doctor of Medicine degree and return after residency to work in medically underserved communities in Northeast Ohio.

Funded by a grant from the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, Urban Universities for HEALTH is a collaborative effort of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU)/Association of Public Land-grant Universities (APLU) with the AAMC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This unique learning collaborative works with urban university leaders on testing and sharing novel approaches to talent development, with the aim of improving the health of urban underserved and minority populations.

In addition to CSU and NEOMED, Urban Universities for HEALTH includes the University of Cincinnati, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, the University of New Mexico and SUNY Downstate.

The Urban Universities for HEALTH conference at CSU coincides with National Primary Care Week (October 6-10), whose theme this year is: “We Are Not Yet Equal: Primary Care Advocacy for Underserved and Marginalized Communities.”