Good health is the right of all individuals, despite race, gender or economic status. This is the foundation of the work and research of Brian Smedley, who will deliver a public lecture on Jan. 16 as part of the University of Michigan’s 26th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium.
His lecture, “Building Stronger Communities for Better Health: The Geography of Equity and Human Rights,” will explore how patterns of residential segregation and unbalanced health risks and resources across communities have led to poorer health in racial and ethnic minority groups compared to national averages.
“Dr. Smedley argues for a more robust approach to place-based investments, as well as housing mobility, to promote the right to good health for all,” says Dr. Joseph Kolars, senior associate dean for education and global initiatives at the Medical School.
Smedley, vice president and director of the Health Policy Institute, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, is a former senior program officer of the Institute of Medicine, where he served as the study director for many reports on diversity in the health professions and minority health research policy. He also helped launch The Opportunity Agenda, a communications, research and policy organization.
“The root cause of health inequities, many public health scholars argue, can be found in patterns of segregation and the inequitable distribution of health risks and resources across communities,” Smedley says. “In many respects the effort to build a health equity movement mirrors the efforts of Dr. King to build a racial and economic justice movement.”
The lecture takes place 11:45 a.m. Jann 16 at the Dow Auditorium in the Towsley Center, U-M Medical Center. It is sponsored by the Health Sciences Program, which includes the schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, and Social Work, the College of Pharmacy and the U-M Hospitals and Health Centers.
