Arkansas State University’s Department of Social Work is presenting the third annual Health Disparities Conference. This takes place November 11th at Centennial Hall in the Carl R. Reng Student Union on the A-State campus. Dr. Patricia Walls is the coordinator of the conference and is an associate professor and is co-chair of the Bachelor of Social Work programs at Arkansas State. She says the papers and presentations that will be featured deal with health issues that are affecting the region today.
“What we know about the Delta region is that there is a correlation between economic issues and health issues. We think about some of these areas that might have a high rate of diseases, such as heart issues, diabetes, and stroke. These will be some of the issues that will be focused on during the conference.”
Dr. Walls gives specific examples of some of the presentations that will be given that day.
“We will have a presentation that will look at obesity in the Delta, we will have a presentation that will examine domestic violence, mortality in the region, HIV and AIDS, and much more.”
The theme for this year’s conference is “Transforming Health Care in the Delta Region”. The keynote speaker for the conference will be Dr. Barbara Ross-Lee, who is the Vice President for Health Sciences and Medical Affairs at the NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Ross-Lee will also be the dean for the new osteopathic medical school that is coming to Arkansas State University. The program will start taking students in the fall. Dr. Walls says health screenings will take place as part of the conference.
“We will be doing health screenings on sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and AIDS, blood pressure, glucose, and more. It will be a full day of health information and also we will focus on some of the preventative things that we can do to reduce some of the numbers of the health issues that we have in the Delta region.”
Dr. Walls says the day-long conference will take place on November 11th from eight to four and is ten dollars for students and 50 dollars for others. More information is available here.
