Conference Fosters Partnership to Improve Health Equity

By Ben Boulden

Billy Thomas, M.D., left; Jasjit Ahluwalia, M.D., M.P.H., and Keneshia Bryant, Ph.D., R.N., visit at UAMS during a break at the Community Campus Partnership Conference to Address Health Disparities.

“For the last few weeks, I’ve been looking at curriculums, particularly hidden curriculums,” said Billy Thomas, M.D., “We all learn about physiology and chemistry. That’s the formal curriculum. There’s the hidden curriculum — what we all learn from mentors, role models and peers. We need to bring attention to that and how that curriculum plays into the product — medical education, diversity and tolerance.”

Thomas, UAMS vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion, went on to praise the conference as an excellent forum for the discussion of how access to health care facilities, services and treatment as well as health outcomes differ between groups according to income, race, ethnicity and gender.

A central tool in diminishing those kinds of health disparities is creating a more diverse health care work force that can serve a population with which they have experience, he said. Having health care professionals reflective of the communities they serve is more likely to produce a positive health care experience for patients.

Ahluwalia was the keynote speaker at the conference.

“I think a more diverse health care work force produces institutional climate change,” Thomas said.

Keynote speaker Jasjit Ahluwalia, M.D., M.P.H., dean of the Rutgers University School of Public Health in Piscataway Township, N.J., addressed attendees on the subject of “Health Equity: A Medical and Ethical Imperative.”

Four afternoon breakout sessions were Service Learning: A Tool to Address Health Disparities, Nursing Workforce Diversity, Arkansas Center for Health Disparities Roundtable and Reducing Health Disparities through Plain Language and Community Engagement.

“This is one of the most important conferences we will sponsor in the next year or two,” Jean McSweeney, Ph.D., interim dean of the College of Nursing, said. “It’s one of the best ways to decrease disparities and increase diversity in Arkansas. You’re about to take in an abundance of rich information, and we want you to spread the word statewide.”

Thomas speaks at the conference’s opening.

Supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration, the conference is a collaboration of the following UAMS colleges, centers and departments: College of Nursing, College of Public Health and it’s Office of Community-Based Public Health, Translational Research Institute, Center for Diversity Affairs, Center for Health Literacy and Arkansas Center for Health Disparities .

About 80 people attended the conference. Keneshia Bryant, Ph.D., R.N., College of Nursing assistant professor, was one of the principal organizers of the gathering.