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HEAL presents ‘The Science of Health Equity Summit’ April 5

Published on February 7, 2018

The University of Iowa’s Health Equity Advancement Lab (HEAL) is presenting the Second Annual Science of Health Equity Summit from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on April 5 at the College of Public Health Building.

HEAL’s mission is to promote health equity through community engaged public health research and practice, with a particular emphasis on communities in the state of Iowa and Midwest region that experience inequities. HEAL’s Annual Science of Health Equity Summit will highlight current evidence-based health equity work being done here at the University of Iowa as well as by our colleagues at the Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, and the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health in Minneapolis-St. Paul, among others.

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Schedule of events

The summit will be from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. April 5 at the College of Public Health Building at the University of Iowa.

  • 9 -10:20 a.m. Welcome and student poster presentations (CPHB Atrium)
  • 10:30 – 11:20 a.m. The Secrets of Making the Science of Health Equity Work: Community and Academic Perspectives on Ensuring Health Equity (CPHB C217)
  • 11:30 a.m. – 12:20 p.m. Gaining the Edge: A Lightning Round of Field-based Health Equity Research (CPHB C217)
  • 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. Kathleen Call, Professor of the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, and Farhiya Farah, a Senior Consultant at GlobeGlow Consulting and Research, Inc in the Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area.  Using Community Based Participatory Research to Help Advance Public Health Policy (CPHB N110)

Welcome and Student Poster Presentations (9 – 10:20 a.m.)

The day will start with student poster presentations in the CPHB Atrium.  Posters presented at this event will focus on the current groundbreaking work students at the University of Iowa and other surrounding universities are doing to advance the field of health equity.

If you are a current University student and would like to present at this event, please respond to our call for abstracts.  To be considered for entry in the poster session, abstracts must be submitted by March 2, 2018 at 11:59 PM CST.  Please send all questions pertaining to poster abstracts to rebecca-bucklin@uiowa.edu. While guests or the summit enjoy the poster session, free light refreshments and coffee will be available.

The Secrets of Making the Science of Health Equity Work: Community and Academic Perspectives on Ensuring Health Equity (10:30 – 11:20 a.m.)

Following the poster presentation in the CPHB Atrium, Dr. Paul Gilbert will moderate a panel of community public health practitioners and academics in C217. This panel will focus on providing a mixture of community and academic experience on previous work focused on increasing health equity in communities. This discussion will focus specifically on the practical implications of working with and in communities to ensure the promotion of health equity. Panelist names and bios will be released at a future date.

Gaining the Edge: A Lightning Round of Field-based Health Equity Research (11:30 AM-12:20 PM)

The research lightning round will consist of brief individual presentations provided by HEAL research staff on the research they are currently undertaking and how this research pertains to the field of health equity.  Speakers will present for around 10 minutes with some time left at the end of their presentations for questions.  This lightening round will take place in CPHB C217.


Becky Bucklin is a Research Assistant at the University of Iowa’s College of Public Health.  She received her MPH from the University of Iowa College of Public Health in Community Behavioral Health and her BS in Nutrition and Wellness from Bradley University.  Her work focuses on applying the principles of health equity put forward by the HEAL program to ensure the CBPR projects she manages move forward equitably. Specific areas of study involve physical activity promotion, healthy retail interventions, and falls prevention programming for underserved populations in the state of Iowa. She works in conjunction with community stakeholders and members within intervention communities to identify and reduce barriers to health promotion programs, which, in turn, reduces current health inequities that exist in rural and minority populations within the state.


Portrait of Angelique Foye of the Kansas City Health Equity Advancement LabAngelique Foye is a Research Assistant II at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. She received her MS from the Purdue University Northwest Behavioral Science Department in Child Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy. She received dual BS degrees in Psychology and Family Studies and Human Services from Kansas State University. Her work focuses on managing and implementing CBPR research projects to break the intergenerational cycle of toxic stress by enhancing capacity of caregivers to promote resilience in children at-risk for lifelong health problems. Her work also focuses on assisting with building community-engaged capacity efforts with the 2Gen Thrive Community Action Board.


A photo of Adriana Maldonado of the University of Iowa College of Public Health.Adriana Maldonado is a doctoral student in the department of Community and Behavioral Health at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. She received her M.A. in Experimental Psychology from California State University San Marcos and her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from San Diego State University. Her work focuses on understanding the mechanisms that drive health disparities for Latino immigrants in the United States and identifying areas for action. Specific topics of study include hypertension, physical activity, healthy retail interventions, and housing inequalities for populations at risk in the state of Iowa. She is currently working in the implementation of an intervention to promote physical activity among Latinas and a qualitative study to understand barriers and facilitators to proper hypertension management among Latinos residing in a micropolitan city.


Portrait of Nicole Novak, postdoctoral research scholar at the Prevention Research Center in the University of Iowa College of Public Health.Nicole Novak is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Prevention Research Center in the University of Iowa College of Public Health.  She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University in Michigan and a Masters of Science in Medical Anthropology from the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She conducts epidemiologic and community-engaged research on health and health equity, particularly with regard to psychosocial stress, race and racialization, immigration, and rural residence. Specific areas of study include the impacts of immigration enforcement on community health, the health implications of local policies that promote inclusion for people facing barriers to government-issued photo ID cards, and community-level influences on health and health equity in midsize rural communities. Nicole will share her experience conducting qualitative research in the mid-size community of Ottumwa, Iowa.

Kathleen Call and Farhiya Farah’s presentation on “Using Community Based Participatory Research to Help Advance Public Health Policy” (12:30 PM – 1:30 PM)

The keynote speakers for the Science in Health Equity summit are Drs. Kathleen Call and Farhiya Farah.  This talk will take place in CPHB N120 and will be a part of the College of Public Health’s Spotlight Series.  Their talk is titled “Using Community Based Participatory Research to Help Advance Public Health Policy.” This talk will take place in Callahan Auditorium in CPHB.

Portrait of University of Minnesota prof. Kathleen CallDr. Call graduated with her PhD in Sociology from the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on access to health care and health insurance among disparity populations; how well health insurance translates into equitable access to health care, and developing community-driven solutions to overcome the barriers that people face to accessing health care. She is a professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health and is the co-director of the School of Public Health’s Healthy Equity Work Group. Community advocate and consultant, Dr. Farhiya Farah, will join Dr. Call for this talk.

Portrait of Farah Farhiya, Senior Consultant at GlobeGlow Consulting and Research, Inc. Dr. Farah received her PhD in Environmental Health Sciences and is a Senior Consultant at GlobeGlow Consulting and Research, Inc. in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Her work includes the provision of consulting services in multiple public health arenas including food safety training, ethnic food business, community based participatory research work, healthy homes and lead poison prevention policy, and grant Development. She has been very involved in her community and serves as a liaison between the Somali Community in Minneapolis-St. Paul area and the University of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Public Health Department, and other community groups and organizations in the area.

The speakers will describe community-engaged work they collaborated on to identify solutions to barriers to health care services for diverse cultural communities already enrolled in Minnesota’s public health insurance programs. Dr. Call will situate the barriers project on a continuum of community engagement, describe the structure and decision making processes adopted to balance of power and build trust, develop community-driven system level recommendations, and evidence of the project’s impact and sustainability. Dr. Farah will describe a food safety project focused on the Somali community in the Minneapolis-St. Paul. In 2006, Minneapolis Health Department conducted a Multicultural story telling project that surfaced community assets and represented a long term engagement process between the Minneapolis Health Department and city residents from diverse cultural communities. It highlighted the values of inclusive policies and practices in overcoming barriers. The food safety project demonstrates critical knowledge gained through engagement and how that knowledge informed changes in city policies and practices that both improved public safety and ensured the success of local restaurants.

Register for The Science of Health Equity

Please register for this event by Wednesday, March 28, by filling out the form below.

Science of Health Equity Registration

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa-sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact Becky Bucklin at rebecca-bucklin@uiowa.edu or 309-678-2352.

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