Conference discusses racial health disparities

Minority populations have higher rates of obesity, smoking, and disease, and lack health insurance, as compared to the general population.

The African, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American Pre-Health Society (AHANA) hosted their first conference discussing these health disparities on Saturday at Union South on UW-Madison campus. Over 300 undergraduates, graduate students and professionals registered to attend the free conference.

The conference offered eight issue-focused sessions, a keynote speaker, and a resource fair, plus breakfast and lunch.

AHANA, a student society for recruiting and retaining students of color in health care professions, organized the conference to facilitate discussion on why certain demographics have considerably worse health than others. Sessions targeted topics like HIV prevention for Latinos, how to advocate for the uninsured and underinsured, and the effect of diabetes on Latino and Native American populations.Dr. Patrick Remington presents at AHANA conference on Saturday

In one session, “Health Disparities: Why They Exists and What We Can Do to Close the Gap,” Dr. Patrick Remington, UW-Madison professor and Associate Dean for Public Health, suggested that disparities are often created by programs intending to increase overall health of a population.

“Our efforts to improve overall health create disparities accidentally, reaching those who have more and leaving behind those who have less,” said Remington. “I don’t think people thought about this as they planned health programs. You have to ask: will my program help everyone? What will it do to disparities?”

In discussing how to close the health gap, Remington said that increasing awareness of that gap is crucial.

The UW Population Health Institute, where Remington is an executive board member, increases awareness of health disparities by issuing a state health report card. Although Wisconsin scores higher than average for overall health, the state got Ds on its disparity ratings.

“So the state’s health system is good overall, but unfair,” said Remington.

Wisconsin’s most recent report card, issued in 2010, showed racial, geographic, gender, and education disparities in the health of the state’s population. In Wisconsin, African and Native Americans are less healthy than other groups. Milwaukee County is less healthy than other counties. Males are less healthy than females. But the category cutting across all of those demographics is education.

“The greatest improvement in overall state health will come from eliminating the health disparities among people with high school education or less,and people with college education and more,” said Remington.

Conference organizer and Co-Chair of AHANA, Aliyya Terry, is both African American and from Milwaukee county. A pre-med junior majoring in biology at UW-Madison, Terry said her dual interests in medicine and health issues facing minority populations led her to organize the conference.

Aliyya Terry, Co-Chair of AHANA“How can I be an effective doctor if I don’t know why certain communities and groups of people are always sicker or have the same type of disease?” Terry said.

Given the hundreds of conference attendees, Terry is not alone in wanting to understand the socioeconomic, lifestyle, and cultural factors contributing to poor physical health.

UW-Milwaukee student, Danielle Washington, attended Saturday’s conference because she is helping her Milwaukee neighborhood, Lindsay Heights, create a neighborhood wellness commons. And Yi Ding, a UW-Madison student who was just accepted to medical school, attended because she wanted to learn more about the idea of public health.

Public health, Remington said, is a term that implies a more holistic approach to maintaining a community’s wellness.

Amanda Eggen, UW-Madison social psychology graduate student, attended the conference because she is interested in obtaining UW-Madison’s Center for Patient Partnerships’ Consumer Health Advocacy Certificate. Eggen said she learned about health disparities at several scales on Saturday, from challenges of finance to community-based support for populations marginalized by the health care system.

The conference was hosted in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health as well as Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.