2018 Annual Meeting
Applying Epidemiology Across the Lifespan to Improve Health Care,
Inform Health Policy and Enhance Population Health
CINCINNATI, OHIO | SEPTEMBER 23-25 2018
Agenda
Minority Affairs Committee (MAC) Workshop
The role of equity in shaping precision public health
Location: University of Cincinnati, Medical Sciences Building (MSB), Room: E-255
Chair: Bertha Hidalgo, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Associate Scientist, Nutrition Obesity Research Center, Chair, Minority Affairs Committee, American College of Epidemiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Description:
The Minority Affairs Committee Annual Workshop, The role of equity in shaping precision public health, will discuss new technologies to improve health equity including surveillance and informatics, genomics, targeted interventions and epidemiological and statistical methodology.
Abstract:
The Minority Affairs Committee will hold our annual workshop titled, The role of equity in shaping precision public health. Precision public health aims to use improved data and methods to target disease prevention and control and to improve health and health equity worldwide. New methods include genomics, enhanced surveillance and informatics, and targeted interventions. Dr. Bethany Bray will deliver a visionary presentation on health disparities and how different methodologies could be used to improve health equity, Dr. Travis Loux will discuss causal inference in targeted interventions, Dr. James Wilson will discuss improved surveillance methods used in the 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak, Dr. Bertha Hidalgo will focus on interventions in the Latino population.
Brief Biography:
Bertha A. Hidalgo, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Associate Scientist in the UAB Nutrition Obesity Research Center and Faculty Scholar in the Center for the Study of Community Health. She holds degrees from Stanford University, the University of Southern California and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research focuses health disparities related to cardiometabolic diseases, with a special focus on Latino populations and genomics. She has received research funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Connections Program to investigate whether genetic and epigenetic differences exist between subgroups of Latinos for cardiometabolic diseases (e.g. obesity, cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes) by first investigating differences in subgroups of Latino children and obesity in an epidemiologic study. She has also received the 2014 Back of the Envelope award to create a multi-ethnic biorepository for cardiometabolic diseases.
Recently, Dr. Hidalgo became the principal investigator of Epigenomics of Cardiometabolic Disease in Mexican American, a K01 award focused on better understanding the genetic and environmental contributors to cardiometabolic diseases in a cohort of Mexican Americans. She is also co-investigator on the UAB Strategically Focused Research Network center grant in Transgenerational Obesity to investigate the epigenetics of obesity across the lifespan. In addition to that work, Dr. Hidalgo is site PI of the TOPMED Glycemic Traits and T2D analysis grant awarded to The Broad by NIDDK. Dr. Hidalgo has also been a diversity supplement recipient, sponsored by UNC Chapel Hill and the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL), to explore genetic heterogeneity in Hispanic/Latinos with T2D and metabolic syndrome. Her research interests include cardiometabolic diseases, genetic epidemiology, health disparities and Latino health. Dr. Hidalgo is an active member of several epidemiology and public health professional societies – including current chair of the Minority Affairs Committee for the American College of Epidemiology - and active in organizations in and around UAB.
