Two experts from UT Health San Antonio will serve as guest speakers at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute’s third annual Global Health Symposium May 18 and 19 at the San Antonio Botanical Garden.
The university is a sponsor of the cross-disciplinary event, which will include speakers from across the nation and the world who will discuss how community, trust and science can help build health equity.
On May 18, Vasan Ramachandran, MD, FACC, FAHA, dean, The University of Texas School of Public Health San Antonio, will participate in the panel discussion “Zipcode vs. genetic code: Unraveling the importance of social determinants of health.”
During the discussion, he will define the social determinants of illness and discuss the following four themes:
- How social determinants are creating illness and lack of health and well-being.
- How to screen for social risk factors and address the social needs of patients once they get to the health care system.
- How a local (South Texas) and rural-American perspective are different.
- How the patterns of economic segregation correspond to the patterns of the geographic distribution of illness.
On May 19, Barbara Taylor, MD, MS, professor of medicine, infectious diseases, and assistant dean for the MD-MPH program, will participate in the panel discussion “It’s all related: Infection, inflammation, chronic disease and cancer.”
Taylor will discuss the role and consequences of inflammation in chronic infectious diseases and in post-infectious inflammatory syndromes, using her work in HIV and long COVID as specific examples. She will also discuss how marginalized communities are often disproportionately impacted by severe outcomes.
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