INFORMATION FOR
The New Jersey Department of Health’s Office of Minority and Multicultural Health will present its 2018 National Minority Health Month Celebration and Health Equity Forum at William Paterson University in Wayne on Friday, April 6 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in the University Commons Ballrooms on campus. This year’s theme is “Ensuring Health Equity for Vulnerable Populations: Recovery through Resiliency.” The one-day conference occurs each April in recognition of the month’s designation as National Minority Health Month.
This year’s agenda includes remarks by Shereef M. Elnahal, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health, and a series of workshops intended to share lessons and support communities working to advance community health and improve health equity. Other featured speakers include William Kernan, William Paterson University professor of public health, who will speak about “Health Equity and the Heroin Epidemic,” and Rev. Benjamin D. Perkins, vice president, multicultural initiatives/health equity, American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, who will discuss “LGBT Health Disparities: The Challenges and Opportunities for Health Equity.”
A variety of concurrent workshops will include topics such as “Understanding Cumulative Impacts in Vulnerable, Overburdened Communities” and “A Public Health Model for Community Engagement with Vulnerable Populations.” Diane Hagerman, deputy director of programs for New Jersey Health, Marco Navarro, senior program officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Darrin Anderson, state program director, New Jersey Partnership for Healthy, will participate in an afternoon panel conversation on the theme “Healthy Communities Begin with Health Equity.”
