Noted public health professor and adviser to speak on “The Social Determinants of Health”

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The West Virginia University School of Public Health will host Paula Braveman, M.D., M.P.H., for the next installment of its Public Health Dialogues Speaker Series at 12:15 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 7 in Room 1905 of the WVU Health Sciences Center.

Dr. Braveman is an adviser to the Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) Foundation and one of two authors on the RWJ publication, “Overcoming Obstacles to Health,” written on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America, a group charged with investigating why Americans aren’t as healthy as they could be and to recommend ways beyond medical care to improve health in years, not decades.

As a professor of family and community medicine and director of the Center on Social Disparities in Health at the University of California, Braveman has studied and published work on health equity and the social determinants of health and has actively brought national and international attention to these issues for more than 25 years. Her research has focused on socioeconomic and racial and ethnic disparities in health, particularly centering on maternal and infant health and healthcare.

She will review the evidence, theories, and knowledge to explain the social and socioeconomic factors shaping health and plausible pathways and biological mechanisms that may explain the effects of social determinants of health. She will provide an in-depth look at how and why these long-term disparities exist among groups across the United States.

The Public Health Dialogues Speaker Series is sponsored by the Office of Public Health Practice and Workforce Development within the WVU School of Public Health. Doors will open in the Health Sciences Center at noon. The series is free and open to the public.

Those interested in attending should RSVP at SPH-Dialogues@hsc.wvu.edu by Nov. 4 to reserve a complimentary lunch at noon.