Events

2024

10th Annual Renée Royak-Schaler Lecture in Health Equity and Population Health

Topic: Transforming Public Health to Achieve Health Justice 

Presenter: Ruqaiijah Yearby, JD, MPH

Ruqaiijah Yearby, J.D., M.P.H is the inaugural Kara J. Trott Professor in Law at the Moritz College of Law, Professor in the Department
of Health Services Management and Policy at the College of Public Health, and a faculty affiliate of the Kirwan Institute at The Ohio State University. Professor Yearby has received over $5 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health to study structural racism and discrimination in vaccine allocation and from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to study the equitable enforcement of housing laws and structural racism in the health care system. Her work has been published in the American Journal of Bioethics, American Journal of Public Health, Emory Law Journal, Health Affairs, and the Oxford Journal of Law and the Biosciences.

Program: 2024 Program

Health Disparities Journal Club

Summer 2023 Health Disparities Journal Club

June 22 - July 27, 2023

Thursdays at Noon via Zoom

Click here to download flyer: summer 2023 flyer

9th Annual Renée Royak-Schaler Lecture in Health Equity and Population Health 

Topic: Equity effects of real-world natural experiments to improve population health 

Presenter: Alyce Adams, PhD

Dr. Adams is the inaugural Stanford Medicine Innovation Professor and Professor of Health Policy, Epidemiology and Population Health and of Pediatrics (by Courtesy). She also serves as Associate Chair for Health Equity and Community Engagement for Stanford Health Policy, Associate Director for Health Equity and Community Engagement in the Stanford Cancer Institute, and as Associate Director for Stanford Impact Labs. Focusing on racial and socioeconomic disparities in chronic disease treatment outcomes, Dr. Adams' interdisciplinary research seeks to evaluate the impact of changes in drug coverage policy on access to essential medications, understand the drivers of disparities in treatment adherence among insured populations, and test strategies for maximizing the benefits of treatment outcomes while minimizing harms through informed decision-making. Prior to joining Stanford School of Medicine, Dr. Adams was Associate Director for Health Care Delivery and Policy and a Research Scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research, as well as a Professor at the Bernard J. Tyson Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine. From 2000 to 2008, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Medicine (formerly Ambulatory Care and Prevention) at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. She received her PhD in Health Policy and an MPP in Social Policy from Harvard University. She is a member of the Board of Directors for Academy Health and a former recipient of the John M. Eisenberg Excellence in Mentoring Award from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Program: 2023 Program

Health Disparities Journal Club

Summer 2022 Health Disparities Journal Club

June 23 – July 28, 2022

Thursdays at Noon via Zoom

Click here to download flyer: Health Disparities Journal Club Summer 2022 Flyer

8th Annual Renée Royak-Schaler Lecture in Health Equity and Population Health 

Topic: Population Risk Stratification to Improve Breast Cancer Outcomes

Presenter: Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, MD, FACP

Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and founding director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics and Global Health at the University of Chicago Medicine, Olopade’s research is focused on gaining a better understanding of the root causes and genomic basis of cancer in diverse populations.  She has published extensively on genetic and non-genetic risk factors for breast cancer and is internationally renowned for her work in inherited cancer syndromes and clinical expertise in early detection and prevention of breast cancer in high-risk women. Olopade mapped genes frequently altered in cancer and has characterized the molecular pathways defining aggressive forms of breast cancer in women of African ancestry. 

A distinguished scholar and mentor, Olopade has been elected to the most prestigious academies and societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. Olopade served for six years as a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board and Chair of the Sub-Committee on Global Cancer Research during the Obama Administration. Olopade has received numerous honors and awards, including honorary degrees from several universities, the 2021 William L. McGuire Memorial Lecture Award, Franklin Roosevelt Freedom from Want Medal, the Order of Lincoln, Officer of the Order of the Niger and, in 2005, a MacArthur Fellowship for “translating findings on the molecular genetics of breast cancer in African and African-American women into innovative clinical practices in the United States and abroad.”

Dr. Olopade earned her medical degree from the University of Ibadan College of Medicine in Nigeria. She trained in Internal Medicine at Cook County Hospital in Chicago and in combined Hematology/Oncology and Cancer Genetics at the Joint Section of Hematology and Oncology at The University of Chicago.  An advocate for social justice, she serves as director on several civic and corporate boards.

Program: 2022 Program

Topic: The Impact of Unresolved Historical Trauma on Indigenous Health Equity

Presenter: Donald Warne, MD, MPH

Donald Warne, MD, MPH is the Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as well as the Director of the Indians Into Medicine (INMED)
and Master of Public Health Programs, and Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of North Dakota. He also serves as the Senior Policy Advisor
to the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Health Board in Rapid City, SD. Dr. Warne is a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe from Pine Ridge, SD and comes from a long line of traditional healers and medicine men. He received his MD from Stanford University School of Medicine and his MPH from Harvard School of Public Health.

Program: 2021_Program

2019

Topic: Social Capital and Disaster Resilience

Presenter: Ichiro Kawachi, MBChB, PhD

Ichiro Kawachi received both his medical degree and Ph.D. (in epidemiology) from the University of Otago, New Zealand. He has taught at the Harvard
School of Public Health since 1992.  Kawachi is the co-editor (with Lisa
Berkman) of the first textbook on Social Epidemiology, published by Oxford
University Press in 2000 (new and revised edition published in 2014).

Program: 2019_Program

2018

Topic: Removing Obstacles to Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Behavioral Health Care

Presenter: Margarita Alegría, PhD

Margarita Alegría, Ph.D., is the Chiefof the Disparities Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Professor in the Departments of
Medicine and Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. 

Program: 2018_program

Topic: When It Comes to Health, Does Zip Code Matter More than Genetic Code?

Presenter: Anthony B. Iton, MD, JD, MPH

A range of powerful evidence shows unequivocally that where you live, as well as your social circumstances, play a huge role in your health. This was the message delivered by Anthony B. Iton, MD, JD, MPH, Senior Vice President of Healthy Communities at the California Endowment, in a lecture April 18 at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM).

Topic: The Concepts of Health Disparities and Health Equity: Can We Get a Little More Clarity?”

Presenter: Paula Braveman, MD, MPH

Dr. Braveman is Director, Center on Social Disparities and Health, and Professor, Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Program: 2016_program

Topic: Neighborhoods and population health: Where have we been and where are we going?

Presenter: Ana Diez Roux, MD, PhD, MPH

Ana Diez Roux, MD, PhD, MPH is a physician and epidemiologist known worldwide for seminal research on health disparities and multilevel determinants of population health.   Her work has had a major impact on public health research and practice.   To learn more:   http://www.publichealth.drexel.edu/academics/faculty/Ana%20Diez%20Roux/.

Topic: Making America Healthier For All: How Social Policies Can Promote Health

Presenter: David R. Wililams, PhD, MPH

Dr. Williams is the Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health and a Professor of African and African American Studies and of Sociology at Harvard University.

Program: 2014_program