NEW ORLEANS – Dillard University will hold its inaugural Women’s Health Conference June 25-26, 2021. Themed “Women’s Health Across the Life Span,” the two-day conference will be held virtually and it is being hosted by the University’s College of Nursing and Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center. Clinicians such as physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and allied health professionals are encouraged to attend. The conference is also for researchers, health educators, public and community health leaders, and students who have an interest in women’s health and grant writing.
The purpose of the conference is to call attention to the disproportionate health issues that women must manage such as emotional and behavioral health, cardiac disease, reproductive health and breast cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the number one cause of death among caucasian and African American women, and the prevalence of the disease increases as these women age. Although African American people account for only 13 percent of the U.S. population, 42 percent represented newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS cases in 2018.
According to conference co-coordinator and Dillard nursing professor, Dr. Charlotte Hurst, citing the CDC, “African American mothers are dying at three times the rate of non-Hispanic white mothers with older African American women over 40 having the highest rate of all maternal deaths.” Hurst looks forward to conference-goers increasing their knowledge in three areas: the number of health care issues impacting women across the lifespan, resources and treatments for health care issues impacting women and the grant writing process and procedures for completing grant applications.
The conference will feature a presentation by New Orleans Health Department director, Dr. Jennifer Avegno who will also moderate a panel discussion entitled “The Impact of COVID-19 on Women in New Orleans.” Also, several experts and practitioners will present their abstracts. The keynote speakers will include Dr. Edith Mitchell, clinical professor in the Department of Medicine and Medical Oncology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University and Dr. Elizabeth Ofili, professor of medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine and a practicing cardiologist with Morehouse Healthcare.
The inaugural Women’s Health Conference at Dillard University is made possible with the support of LCMC Health, Marsh & McLennan Agency, the New Orleans Black Nurses Association and Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast.
Dillard’s College of Nursing will provide a total of eight continuing education contact hours. Registration for the conference can be found at www.dillard.edu/whc. For more information, contact Tiffany Kirkwood at 504-816-4001 or tkirkwood@dillard.edu.
