7th Annual Texas Conference on Health Disparities

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The University of North Texas Health Science Center established the Texas Center for Health Disparities to conduct education, research and outreach activities to eliminate health disparities. As part of its education and outreach activitis, the Center has been has organized very successful annual health disparity conferences for the past five years supported and funded in part by the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) focusing on different areas of health disparities. The Seventh Annual Conference on Health Disparities will be held July 12th and 13th, 2012 at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. The overall theme for the conference is Battling Breast Cancer Disparities: Frontline Strategies!. Striking health disparities exist in the area of breast cancer. Occurrence of breast cancer is disproportionate in premenopausal and AA women. AA women develop highly aggressive tumors and have higher mortality rate than other groups. Premenopausal AA women are not only at a higher risk of breast cancer (33%) compared to Caucasian women (25%), but also are at a high risk of developing TNBC. This conference will feature nationally recognized speakers, patients, survivors and community speakers, and interactive debates highlighting the striking disparities and frontline strategies to overcome thes disparities in breast cancer. Of specific focus will be Prevention Strategies in Medicine and Community with emphasis on Community Based solutions. Educational and interactive presentations, panel discussions and questions/ answer sessions will identify the challenges and bring conference attendees closer to developing a prospectus for the future. The Specific Aims of this application are: 1) Enhance health disparity knowledge of the health care practitioners and policy makers, and 2) Serve as a resource for the minority communities to disseminate health information, promote community participation in health education and research, and to implement disease prevention activities. The expected outcome will be increased participation of health care practitioners in minority communities and awareness of policy makers in the existing health disparities. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Health disparities are a significant challenge to the health and well being of Americans. Elimination of health disparities necessitates a full understanding of the existence of health disparities as well as best practices and novel solutions to the problem. The annual Texas Conference on Health Disparities addresses these goals.