UIC’s 14th Annual Minority Health Conference

The Minority Health Conference is a yearly gathering where professionals and students from allied health fields come together to uncover and focus on eliminating the health challenges encountered by marginalized populations. This conference seeks not only to shed light on health inequities that persist in marginalized communities, but to also build a task force of emerging leaders and professionals to address these issues at the local, regional and national levels.

Our 2023 theme is interdisciplinary and interprofessional health. We are partnering with the Center for Healthy Work, the Health Professionals Student Council and are supported by several gracious sponsors. The theme of interdisciplinary and interprofessional health is meant to highlight the importance of collaboration among health professionals to create better and more equitable health outcomes. Collaborative health practice should include medical professionals, public health workers, policy writers, advocates, community members and more. Doing interdisciplinary work is vital to addressing upstream and root causes for health disparities, especially among minority populations.

Public health is an active and integral actor in these for social change. As a field, public health must intentionally shed light on disparities that persist due to structural and social inequalities and provide pathways to promote better health for all. We hope the 2023 conference will create a forum that sets the stage for greater interdisciplinary engagement of both public health and other sectors. 

We are thrilled to be able to host this conference in-person for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. This year we are hosting a panel of interdisciplinary scholars from across UIC’s campus; several exemplary projects submitted by students, faculty and community members; elective sessions on relevant and timely topics related to this year’s theme; an inspiring keynote speech by Dr. Linda Rae Murray; and much more. Register for the event.