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Brief Description:

A recent summit highlighted many of the complex biological and non-biological factors that influence health outcomes. Sessions offered best practice models in research, training, career development, clinical intervention, community outreach, and policy, being applied in communities around the nation and in different countries.

Transcript:

Balintfy: The National Institutes of Health has hosted the largest national conference ever on health disparities. The NIH Summit: The Science of Eliminating Health Disparities is the first of its kind. It involved all of the NIH Institutes and Centers. Dr. Raynard Kington, Acting Director of the NIH, says health disparities research is key in the quest to improve the health of all Americans. He adds that the summit underscores the significance of partnerships to eliminate this complex issue.

Kington: I think it’s an opportunity to bring together leading scientists, policy makers, and practitioners to come together to agree on a strategic approach to addressing and ultimately eliminating health disparities.

Balintfy: Advances in science, medicine, and technology offer the potential to improve health, but large segments of the population defined by race, ethnicity, geography, gender, or socio-economics are not deriving equal benefits from these advances. As part of the summit, Dr, Kington announced the launch of an Intramural Program at the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities to expand research into eliminating health disparities.

Kington: I think the intramural research program that is being developed presents another opportunity to support research that addresses important health disparities. It taps into this unique resource of the intramural program at NIH.

Balintfy: This new program builds on existing health disparity-related efforts to conduct state-of-the-art research, create training and career development, and to contribute a pool of promising and seasoned investigators to the NIH Intramural Research Program. For more information on the summit, the funding announcement and health disparities research, visit www.ncmhd.nih.gov. This is Joe Balintfy, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.