"Does racism make us sick?" is the question addressed by the 13th annual Summer Public Health Research Video Conference on Minority Health, sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health's Minority Health Project and the university's Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.

The interactive conference will be broadcast live online from 2 to 4 p.m. on June 25 from the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.  Registered satellite downlink sites are available in more than 20 states across the country.  Participation is free, but registration is required. Registration information and a list of videoconference sites are available at www.minority.unc.edu.

Photograph of Dr. Anissa Vines

"Public health research continues to document relationships between racism and disease," Vines said. "Racism is one of the strongest determinants of social inequalities in society. It has structured society in a way that people of color are often predisposed to social conditions that cause chronic stress.

"We hope the conference can entice people to engage in open dialogues about how racism can affect health, and to seek opportunities to eliminate its presence in society," Vines said.

Photograph of Dr. Victor Schoenbach

Because the audience will be broad and diverse, presentations should be understandable to members of the general public as well, Schoenbach said. Conference speakers will suggest new ways of looking at familiar problems.

Conference speakers are:

• Luisa N. Borrell, Ph.D., assistant professor, department of epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
• Gilbert C. Gee, Ph.D., assistant professor, department of health behavior and health education, University of Michigan School of Public Health.
• Karina Walters, Ph.D., William B. and Ruth Gerberding Endowed Professor, University of Washington School of Social Work.
• David R. Williams, Ph.D., Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health, department of society, human development and health, Harvard University School of Public Health.

For more information or to register: http://www.minority.unc.edu.

Note: Anissa Vines can be reached at (919) 843-3539.

Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs contact: Lynne Degitz, (919) 843-6085 or degitz@email.unc.edu.

School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.

News Services contact: Becky Oskin, (919) 962-8596 or becky_oskin@unc.edu.