By Sharon Brock
“We are the change agents. With health care reform, we need to improve outreach programs and restructure our research to promote change. Our research costs a lot of money; it needs to make a difference.”
That was a call to action by William Vega, PhD, provost professor at the University of Southern California, to nearly 300 faculty and staff gathered for a recent symposium focusing on health disparities research at UCSF.
“Social injustices, which lead to health care disparities, are not ending any time soon, so what we need to do is equalize within the system, be more cost effective with our resources and mitigate the worst impacts of these disparities over the next 10 years. It’s what needs to be done.”
Vega was the keynote speaker at the Fourth Annual Health Disparities Research Symposium on Oct. 22, at the UCSF Laurel Heights Conference Center. The symposium, organized by Barbara Gerbert, PhD, Victor Fujimoto, MD, and Eliseo Perez-Stable, MD, was one of the main events for UCSF’s diversity celebration month.