The 38th annual Minority Health Conference aims to be one of the most diverse in the event's history.
Started in 1977, the Minority Health Conference is the largest and longest running student-led conference of its kind in the country. The event, taking place today, has grown so large that in the 1990s the conference was moved from the auditorium in Rosenau Hall to the William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education.
The conference is titled "Systems of Power: Recalling Our Past, Restructuring Our Future." Chandra Ford, professor of Community Health Sciences in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, will be the keynote speaker at this year's conference.
One thing missing from this year’s conference theme is the word "health." Marisa Martini, conference co-chairperson, said this was intentional.
“We really were intentional about not including the word health in the theme of the conference, because we wanted it to be very interdisciplinary this year in focus," she said.
Martini said this is because there are many other fields that contribute to minority health and that of the general population than just the medical community. She said part of the conference’s goal is to use the political tension of this day and age to generate a useful discussion.
“I feel like there’s a lot of name calling from both sides of the aisle, and there’s not a lot of productive discourse that’s really happening around these issues," she said.
This is also a goal shared by Jani Radhakrishnan, a conference co-chairperson.
“This year is about bringing people together," she said. "We’re hitting on topics ranging from history to politics. We’re hoping this will be the most diverse and interdisciplinary conference ever. The purpose of this conference is to unite people on issues like race and challenge people’s perspectives”.
