UC Riverside to host global health leaders on Feb. 23
UC Riverside and the UC Global Health Institute will host global health leaders from California and the nation on Saturday, Feb. 23, at the third annual UC Global Health Day. Topics from global mental health, standard of care in disasters, and the health risks facing migrants will be presented by faculty and students from across the 10-campus University of California system.
The keynote speakers will be renowned global health experts Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D. and Barbara J. Natterson-Horowitz, M.D.
Registration is open until Friday, Feb. 15: $50 general admission; $25 for students. For more information, visit the UCGHI website.
Dr. Emanuel will present "Who Gets the Next Dollar in International Health Aid? Priority-setting for Global Health." The vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and the founding chair of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, he will address the ethical dilemmas posed by setting global health priorities, and the tough choices policymakers need to confront. He will highlight some of the world's most pressing public health challenges and assess some approaches that can be taken to promote health in developing nations.
A second keynote talk will be presented in the afternoon by Dr. Natterson-Horowitz, who is a cardiologist and psychiatrist and professor of medicine in the UCLA Division of Cardiology. In her talk, "Species-Spanning Medicine: Healing All of the Patients on the Planet," she will discuss the exploration of diseases through a "species-spanning" perspective to help bring physicians into long-overdue partnerships with veterinarians, public health experts, wildlife biologists and many others entrusted with the health of this planet's patients. Dr. Horowitz co-authored the 2012 book "Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing" and was featured on NPR last June.
Students and faculty from every UC campus will be in attendance at the all-day event, which will feature plenary sessions, posters, and several concurrent breakout sessions covering a broad range of global health topics, including:
- Global Mental Health: Defining Challenges for Refugees and Migrants
- Millions on the Move: The Unique Health Risks Facing Global Migrants
- Improving Global Surveillance for Emerging Viruses of People and Animals
- Global Health Policy, Law and Diplomacy
- Health, Nutrition and Economic Development: The Role of Early Childhood and Fetal Environment
- The Standard of Care in Disasters: What Do Populations Deserve?
"By hosting UC Global Health Day this campus is taking a critical step toward demonstrating our commitment to the health of those in our local and global communities," said UCR Interim Chancellor Jane Close Conoley. "With a new School of Medicine and a new School of Public Policy launched, UC Riverside is positioned to advance UC's global health policy agenda in even more arenas and to support the key role that it already plays through research and community service."
The UC Global Health Institute was established in November 2009 in response to the growing demand from students and faculty interested in global health research and education. The UCGHI convenes people from across the UC system to collaborate on research projects, and provides education and training opportunities through workshops, courses, lectures and other events. Past UC Global Health Days have been held at UC Irvine and UC Berkeley, and have showcased the depth and breadth of global health work being done around the world by UC faculty, students and staff.
UC Riverside has been intimately involved in the establishment of the UC Global Health Institute, said Anil Deolalikar, founding dean of the UCR School of Public Policy. Several UCR faculty served on the initial planning committee, and the university co-hosts one of the institute's three centers of expertise—the One Health Center. Faculty and students in UCR's College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences and Bourns College of Engineering are working on global health issues, and the newly launched School of Medicine and School of Public Policy also will have strong connections to global health, he said.
"Many global health problems are very relevant to California – food, proximity to animals, water contamination, water scarcity, and how the combination of these factors leads to illnesses. It's a very California problem, particularly with agriculture being such an important part of the state's economy," Deolalikar explained, adding that the global health sector represents more than a $75 billion impact on the California economy, including 350,000 high-quality jobs, nearly $20 billion in wages and salaries, and approximately $8 billion in tax revenue.
Provided by University of California - Riverside