Sep 5, 2007 -- As health care costs soar and the number of uninsured Americans rises inexorably, leading international public health academics and clinicians will convene next month at Yeshiva University to address diversity and disparity in health care and related topics focused on understanding and eradicating chronic disease. The two-day conference, held September 20-21 at the Geraldine Schottenstein Cultural Center on the university’s Beren Campus in Midtown Manhattan, will also launch the university’s Institute of Public Health Sciences. The institute, a joint project of YU’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, sponsors conferences, conducts research, issues papers, and searches for viable answers to such issues as obesity and other global health problems. This inaugural conference, co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association and YU’s Center for Ethics, also celebrates the 50th anniversary of Ferkauf Graduate School. At the conference, institute leaders will sign a Memo of Understanding with their counterparts at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). The memo—the first between the PHFI and a New York institution and the only one between the PHFI and any US partner that has a primary social and behavioral focus on health and illness—will establish formal ties between the two entities, providing for faculty and student exchanges, joint education and research programs, and other initiatives designed to redress the limited institutional capacity in India for strengthening training, research, and policy development in the area of public health. Dr. Srinath Reddy, PHFI President, will deliver the keynote address, “Emerging Social Disparities in Cardiovascular Diseases in India.” “Participants at the conference will present the realities of health problems related to diversity, and generate a discussion about whether disparity is an inevitable by-product of diversity,” said Dr. Sonia Suchday, co-director of the Institute of Public Health Sciences and director of the Clinical Psychology (Health Emphasis) PhD program at Ferkauf Graduate School. The conference will emphasize that “health care needs to be culturally synchronous in order for people to benefit from it,” Dr. Suchday said. “In a globalized world, unless cultural awareness is central to the promotion of health and prevention of disease, it is hard to reach people. Culture within this context is broadly defined and includes factors such as race, gender, ethnicity, geography (e.g. rural versus urban culture, southern versus northeaster culture).” Dr. Paul Marantz, co-director of the institute and associate dean for clinical research education and professor of epidemiology and population health and of medicine at Einstein, added, “Conference participants will have ample opportunity to interact with experts in the field, who have spent their research careers working on health issues among diverse groups of people in terms of ethnicity, location, socio-economic status, lifestyles, and other factors.” Speakers include: - Dr. Ruth Macklin, professor of bioethics at Einstein - Dr. Elizabeth Brondolo, professor in the Department of Psychology at St. John’s University - Dr. Craig Ewart, professor of psychology and member of the core faculty at the Center for Health and Behavior at Syracuse University - Dr. William Guerin, director of research at the Behavioral Cardiovascular Health and Hypertension Center at Columbia University - Dr. Evelyn Lewis, medical director at Pfizer, Inc. and principal investigator at the Center for Health Disparities Research and Education - Dr. Tracy Sbrocco, director of research at the Uniformed Services University Center for Health Disparities Research and Education Center - Dr. David Schlundt, associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Meharry Medical College For more information on the conference, call Dr. Suchday at (718) 430-3856 or visit www.yu.edu/Ferkauf and look under current events.