LaVeist to Speak at PSU
Thomas LaVeist, Director of the Center for Health Disparities Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomsburg School of Public Health and author of Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Health Disparities in the United States, will visit Penn State on February 12 to speak about health disparities. His talk will examine social and behavioral factors that explain racial differences in health outcomes and will also consider the impact of social policy on the health and quality of life of African Americans. The Department of Health Policy and Administration and the Center for Health Care and Policy Research are hosting LaVeist's visit as part of the biweekly Health Services Research Colloquium co-sponsored by the two organizations.
Dr. LaVeist will describe how African Americans still experience disparities in all levels of health care; from access to insurance and health care to the quality of the care received. Disparities are evident in the differing life expectancies of Americans of different races, as well as death rates from specific diseases. For example, the death rate from cirrhosis of the liver among American Indians is about three times the rate for white Americans and nearly four times the rate for Asian Americans. In his own research, LaVeist has shown that African Americans are less compliant with prescribed treatment regimes because of continuing mistrust of the health care system, which further exacerbates health differences.
Through the Center for Health Disparities Solutions, LaVeist seeks to develop a framework for the development of policy and interventions to address race disparities in health-related outcomes - including cultural competency training for health professionals and efforts to increase minority trust in health care systems. LaVeist has been featured on CNN and Newsweek.
Thomas LaVeist will present on "Problems and Prospects for Health Disparities Research." on February 12, 2006 from 12:15-1:30 in 101 East Health and Human Development and Hershey Teleconference Room CG623.
For more information on Dr. LaVeist or the Center for Health Disparities Solutions, visit his website at www.laveist.com.
For more information about this and other speakers in the health services research colloquium, contact Barbara Fleischer at (814) 863-2900.