Feinberg students, faculty, trainees and staff gathered in a packed Hughes Auditorium for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s annual Fall Lyceum on October 8.
This year’s featured speaker was Thomas LaVeist, PhD, dean of the Tulane University Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the Weatherhead Presidential Chair in Health Equity. LaVeist is also principal investigator of the Partners for Advancing Health Equity Collaborative at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
“The whole purpose of this lyceum series year over year is to really explore in depth this intersection of society, health and healthcare, and you’ll see that Dr. LaVeist is a perfect person to elucidate what are the permutations, what are the issues and what are the accomplishments that we can expect if we understand this space better,” said Clyde Yancy, MD, MSc, vice dean for Diversity and Inclusion and chief and Magerstadt professor of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine, who introduced LaVeist.
During his presentation, LaVeist discussed racial disparities in medicine and shared insights he’s gathered over the course of his decades-long career dedicated to understanding the causes of health inequities and potential solutions.
LaVeist discussed how race has been measured by the U.S. since the first census in 1790 and how this measurement has changed over time, which has impacted current scientific research and healthcare.
“This [race] is the variable that we in the health sciences rely on to do the scientific work that we do. Is there another variable in our work that is so casually defined and measured as this, and is there another variable in our work that gets as much attention? I want you to think about this as you go forward… What does this term mean? What is race measuring? Is this really a biological concept or is it a concept that’s really being affected by political determinations of government deciding how we’re going to measure race from one time to the next?” LaVeist said.
LaVeist also highlighted key findings from his own work, which has explored U.S. health and social policy, the role of race in health research, social factors contributing to mortality, longevity and life expectancy, quantitative and demographic analysis and access, and the utilization of health services.
“I believe what it comes down to is that we live in this country together, but we experience the country very differently on the basis of race, and what we’re measuring when we’re measuring race disparities is how that person is experiencing their country,” LaVeist.
LaVeist also argued that within the context of racial disparities are disparities in health, factors like wealth, education and criminal justice, are all interconnected and must be prioritized in order to improve scientific research and clinical care.
“One thing to be cognizant of is after you see a patient, you’re sending this patient back out into the world that contributed to whatever the conditions were that they experienced when they came in for treatment. So, we need to be thinking more broadly about where are they living, what are those exposures, what can we advise them to do to live a healthier lifestyle,” LaVeist said. “We need to think beyond just healthcare and be thinking about the actual lived experience of the patient.”
The event concluded with a health equity poster session featuring more than 65 research poster presentations from Feinberg students, staff, trainees and faculty that explored social determinants of health, access to care, cultural competence, community-based interventions, policy and advocacy, and innovative research and technologies.
The Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s Lyceum Speaker Series hosts distinguished scholars to present on current topics related to diversity and inclusion with the goal of encouraging inclusivity, learning and understanding throughout the Feinberg community.
