⭐️ Presented by the Campus Community Book Project (DEI | OCCR)

This panel discussion will connect the original Institute of Medicine report, Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care, published in 2002, with the updated report released this year, Ending Unequal Treatment: Strategies to Achieve Equitable Health Care and Optimal Health for All. In the past 20 years, how much progress has been made toward achieving health equity? This panel will include experts who served on the original and updated National Academies committees that released these reports and will also discuss local strategies at UC Davis to address health equity in research, community settings, and workforce development.

Panelists:

Ruth Shim, MD, MPH - Luke & Grace Kim Professor in Cultural Psychiatry at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Dr. Shim served on the Ending Unequal Treatment Committee, updating the original Unequal Treatment report.

Carolina Reyes, MD - Associate Clinical Professor and specialist in Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Dr. Reyes served on the first Institute of Medicine Unequal Treatment Committee.

Alice Popejoy, PhD - Assistant Professor in Residence in Public Health Sciences at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Dr. Popejoy's research focuses on public health genetics and equity issues related to the ethical, legal, and social implications of this research.

Erik Fernandez y Garcia, MD, MPH - Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Dr. Fernandez y Garcia's research focuses on health inequities rooted in social constructs and interventions that build and strengthen communities.

In 2024-2025, the UC Davis Campus Community Book Project will be reading "Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society" by Arline Geronimus and will feature a year-long program on the theme of health equity and justice. Arline Geronimus is a professor in the School of Public Health and a research professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, where she also is affiliated with the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture and Health. She is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science. Fusing science and social justice, Dr. Geronimus’ scholarship explores how systemic injustice erodes the health of marginalized people. Until now, there has been little discussion about the insidious effects of social injustice on the body. "Weathering" shifts the paradigm, shining a light on the topic and offering a roadmap for hope.