Assessing Health Disparities in Underserved Populations

This webinar provides education on disparities within underserved populations, specifically as they relate to childhood obesity and the Hispanic/Latino population. This webinar helps to increase knowledge and understanding of root causes related to health disparities, as well as policies and practices that can reduce health disparities and improve health outcomes by reducing childhood obesity. The webinar goes into current research and projects underway that are addressing health disparities in the Hispanic/Latino population and is designed for community leaders and professionals in public health, healthcare, government, and others who are seeking a more comprehensive understanding of health disparities related to childhood obesity in the Hispanic/Latino community and strategies that can be used to reduce those disparities. Although health disparities affect many communities, whether by gender, race, or class, the COI has identified addressing health disparities affecting the Hispanic/Latino community as a priority. The Hispanic/Latino community in San Diego County represents just over a third of the population and recent data from the State of Childhood Obesity in San Diego County report suggest that the rate of Hispanic/Latino students in 5th, 7th, and 9th grade affected by obesity is over twice that of their non-Hispanic classmates.

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Panelists

Sandra Viera – Sandra Viera is a graduate of the University of San Francisco with a Master’s in Public Administration and Policy and earned her bachelor’s degree in Political Science from California State University, Long Beach. She joined Prevention Institute in 2010 working to promote safe and healthy communities through projects focused on improving the built environment and increasing equitable opportunities for physical activity and play. Sandra has provided support to the Healthy Places Coalition, a statewide coalition seeking to advance public health involvement in land-use and transportation planning, as well as the Joint Use Statewide Task Force (JUST) whose mission is to increase community access to playgrounds through the policy of joint use agreements between school districts and local governments. As a Program Manager, Sandra serves as a lead trainer for the organization in the areas of community engagement, stakeholder engagement, coalition building, and cross-sectoral collaboration to audiences that include non-profits, government agencies and grant-making foundations. Prior to joining Prevention Institute, Sandra served as the Associate Director of Policy at Latino Health Access (a non-profit based in Santa Ana, California) where she coordinated multi-sector, long-term healthy eating and active living initiatives focused on changing policy, systems and environmental change. Sandra will provide an overview of health equity and the Thrive framework the Prevention Institute promotes to enable communities to determine how to improve health and safety, and promote health equity.

Alicia Fernandez, M.D. – Dr. Fernandez is a Professor of Medicine at UCSF and a general internist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General where she practices primary care medicine and attends on the medical wards. Her research is in health and health care disparities, with a focus on diabetes, Latino health, immigrant health, and language barriers. A member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators, she received the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Professorship for Humanism in Medicine (2009-2013). Since 2014, Dr. Fernandez has been a member of the Board of Governors of the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and the National Academy of Science Roundtable on Health Literacy. She is co-editor of the Lange textbook (2016), Medical Management of Vulnerable and Underserved Patients. Dr. Fernandez received her BA at Yale, her MD at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed her residency, chief residency and fellowship at UCSF. At UCSF, Dr. Fernandez serves as the health equity leader of the SOM Differences Matter initiative. She also directs UCSF PROF-PATH, an academic career and research training program for URM students and students focused on health disparities research; is co-PI of RISE (NHLBI R25HL126146), a national training program in implementation science for URM faculty; and core-PI of SF BUILD (U54MD009523) a joint capacity building program between UCSF and San Francisco State University.

Amy Beck, MD, MPH – Amy received her MD and MPH degrees from the University of Connecticut and completed a pediatric residency and General Academic Pediatrics Research Fellowship at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Beck is currently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at UCSF in the Division of General Pediatrics. She practices general pediatrics at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital (ZSFG) and serves as the co-director of the Healthy Lifestyles Clinic, a pediatric weight management clinic at ZSFG.  Dr. Beck’s research focuses on the development and evaluation of novel primary care based strategies to prevent obesity in low-income Latino children as well as innovative approaches to obesity treatment in this population.  Dr. Beck’s research is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Hellman Foundation. She will be discussing her previous and ongoing research related to obesity prevention in the Hispanic/Latino population.