2016 Public Health Ethics Forum

The theme of this year’s forum is Making Latino/Hispanic Health Count: Advancing a Public Health Ethics Framework on Data Collection for Social Justice. The forum, co-hosted by Tuskegee University, CDC, and Morehouse School of Medicine, will be an opportunity to explore data-related challenges and accomplishments needed to improve the health of Latinos/Hispanics.

Latinos/Hispanics are the largest racial/ethnic minority population in the U.S. Last year’s CDC Vital Signs Report on Hispanic health used national census and health surveillance data to determine differences between Hispanics and whites, and among Hispanic subgroups. The 2016 Public Health Ethics Forum will continue the conversation on gathering data to address health disparities and related challenges for Latinos/ Hispanics.

The keynote Speaker, Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., is the Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIMHD is the lead organization at NIH for planning, reviewing, coordinating, and evaluating minority health and health disparities research activities conducted by NIH Institutes and Centers.

This year’s forum is the second annual forum following the inaugural commemoration of the 100th anniversary of National Negro Health Week which evolved to become National Minority Health Month. In April 1915, Booker T. Washington dispatched a letter to the leading African American newspapers proposing the observance of “National Negro Health Week.” That observance grew into what is today a month-long initiative to advance health equity across the country on behalf of all racial and ethnic minorities.

As last year’s forum, graduate students pursuing Masters degrees in Public Health and others will present posters focused on Latino/Hispanic health, health disparities, and/or health equity.