The Annual Minority Health Conference was launched by the Minority Student Caucus in 1977 and has been conducted nearly every year since then. Major objectives are to highlight health issues of concern to people of color and to attract students interested in minority health to the School. Initially the Conference was held in Rosenau Auditorium in the School of Public Health, but when attendance increased to 300-400 during the 1990's, the Conference moved to the William and Ida Friday Continuing Education Center.

For most of the Conference's history, planning and implementation of the Conference have been led by the School's Minority Student Caucus, which designated the chair or co-chairs of the Planning Committee each year. The Planning Committee included representatives of the sponsoring organizations (the Caucus, Dean's Office, NC Institute of Public Health, Minority Health Project) and student volunteers. The Conference has been co-sponsored by various organizations in and outside the University (see co-sponsors for each year's conference).

William T. Small Jr.

In 1999, Dean William Roper named the Keynote Lecture after William T. Small, Jr., Associate Dean and Senior Advisor for Multicultural Affairs, who for over a quarter of a century worked on behalf of and won the respect and affection of public health students - enrolled students, former students, and prospective students, and their families - as well as faculty, staff, and administrators. (Dr. Roper's remarks)

Also in 1999 the Minority Health Project (about) began organizing webcasts of the Annual William T. Small, Jr. Keynote Lecture, and in 2001 added a satellite broadcast with support from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Videotapes and/or DVDs of many broadcasts were distributed by the Public Health Foundation. In 2009 student organizations at five public health schools (see list) presented the broadcast of the annual William T. Small, Jr. Keynote Lecture in conjunction with their own events. One of these partner conferences, the 1st Annual Minority Health in the Midwest Conference at the University of Illinois, Chicago, had over 200 participants.

In 2010, students at Tulane, UCLA, and UIC Chicago again held partner conferences and were joined by George Washington University students, In 2011, students at GWU, Tulane, UCLA, and UIC Chicago again held partner conferences and were joined by students at Harvard University. In 2012, students at Harvard, GWU, UCLA, and UIC Chicago were joined by students at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, the RWJF Center for Health Policy at Meharry Medical College, and the Department of Preventive Medicine at St. George's University in Grenada. Partner conferences were again held in 2013 and 2014. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, these "partner conferences" have been a regular feature of the annual Minority Health Conference, as students around the country join together to promote health equity and full inclusion.

In 2012 the conference co-chairs introduced a second keynote lecture, the annual Victor J. Schoenbach Health Disparities Keynote Lecture. In 2017 the conference co-chairs introduced a closing keynote lecture. The 2017 closing keynote was presented by Amy Locklear Hertel, Director of the UNC American Indian Center (AIC), an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, and a descendant of the Coharie Indian Tribe.

The numbers of partner conferences and keynote lectures have varied from year to year. Most keynote lectures since 2000 have been recorded and most are maintained on the web. However, before COVID-19, only the Annual William T. Small, Jr. Keynote Lecture has had an interactive webcast.

44th Annual Minority Health Conference: Practicing Health As a Human Right: Policy, Ethics and the Law

Friday, February 24, 2023

Past conferences

Related conference series’ at UNC

- “Political Power, Policy, and Health Equity”, June 7, 2016 (Information and archived webcast)
- “Advancing a Community-Based Model for Violence Prevention”, June 2, 2015 (Information and archived webcast)
- “School-to-Prison Pipeline”, June 3, 2014 (Information and archived webcast)
- “Early Childhood Development: Investing in Our Children and Our Future”, June 4, 2013 (Information and archived webcast)
- “Social Determinants of Health Disparities: Moving the Nation to Care about Social Justice”, June 5, 2012 (Information and archived webcast)
- “Health Equity: Progress and Pitfalls”, June 7, 2011 (Information and archived webcast)
- “What Will Health Care Reform Mean for Minority Health Disparities?”, June 8, 2010 (Information and archived webcast)
- “Breaking the Cycle: Investigating the Intersection of Educational Inequities and Health Disparities”, June 9, 2009 (Information and archived webcast)
- “Men’s Health Disparities”, June 3, 2008 (Information and archived webcast)
- “Does Racism Make Us Sick?”, June 25, 2007, Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History (Information and archived webcast)

Links