The Health Equity Advancement Lab in the University of Iowa College of Public Health will host its annual Science of Health Equity Summit with several events in the month of April 2022. The theme of this year’s summit is “Health Equity in Action: Bringing Theory to Practice.”

Keynote Address

“Towards Critical Health Equity: Getting Critical About Theory, Methods, and Praxis to Advance Health Equity for All, Not Just the Privileged Some”
Friday, April 1
Noon-1:30 p.m.
Register for the Zoom webinar

Lisa Bowleg, PhD, MA, a leading scholar of the application of intersectionality to social and behavioral science health research, is Professor of Applied Social Psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the George Washington University (GW), and Director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Core of the DC Center for AIDS Research (DC CFAR). She is also the Founder and President of the Intersectionality Training Institute (www.intersectionalitytraining.org). Informed by intersectionality and critical race theory, her mixed methods research projects examine the effects of social-structural stressors (e.g., unemployment, incarceration, police brutality), intersectional stigma, and protective factors on the health of Black men at diverse intersections of socioeconomic status and sexuality. 

She has served as a principal investigator (PI) of five National Institutes of Health-funded projects and is the PI of the WK Kellogg Foundation-funded, Intersectionality Toolkit Project. She is an associate editor at AJPH and the editor of AJPH’s Perspectives from the Social Sciences section.

In May 2021, GW awarded her its Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Prize for Scholarship (Research). In February 2022, Health, Education and Behavior, the journal of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE) awarded her the 2021 Lawrence W. Green Paper of the Year Award in honor of her article, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House: Ten Critical Lessons for Black and Other Health Equity Researchers of Color.”

In addition, the Department of Community and Behavioral Health will announce the 2022 recipient of the Sprince Zwerling Award for Social Justice prior to the keynote address. The award is given annually to a distinguished, well-deserving CBH graduate student who is pursuing an interest in addressing health disparities and alleviating social injustice.  

Alumni panel: “A Look at Health Equity in the Field”

Friday, April 8
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Register for the Zoom webinar

This panel discussion will feature University of Iowa graduates and other professionals currently working in health equity and adjacent fields. Panelists will provide insight on how health equity values and ideas can be applied to health practice and health-adjacent careers and how attendees might consider making an impact in health equity, no matter which field they aspire to work in.

Panel participants:

Dr. Halkeno Tura (he/him/his)
Director of the Center for Health Equity
Minnesota Department of Health

Naomi Marroquin (she/her/hers)
Health Care Manager for the Eastern Iowa Region
Proteus, Inc.

Bella De Soriano (she/her/hers)
Senior Manager of Public Health, Medical Affairs
Healthline Media

Journal Club

The Health Equity Advancement Lab also invites any interested participants to join two HEAL Journal Club events taking place during the month of April.

April 1
11-12 p.m.
Facilitator: Dean Edith Parker
Virtual event. Email shannon-watkins@uiowa.edu to request Zoom link.

April 29
2-3 p.m.
Facilitator: Rima Afifi, professor of community and behavioral health
Virtual event. Email shannon-watkins@uiowa.edu to request Zoom link.