The number of Latinos in the five-state WWAMI region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho) has increased significantly over the last three decades such that Latinos are now the largest and fastest growing minority group in the region. In 2011, there were more than one million Latinos living in the WWAMI region. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research addressing the most important health problems facing this population. To address this gap, the Community Outreach Research Translation (CORT) core of the Institute for Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) at the University of Washington is proposing a two day conference titled, """"""""Latino Health Research, Practice and Policy: Identifying our Strengths and Growing our Collaborations."""""""" The overall goal of this conference is fostering new community-engaged research along three broad themes: behavioral health, chronic illness treatment and prevention, and health policy.
The specific aims of the conference are:
Aim 1 : To provide a forum for the exchange of knowledge, professional networking for the purpose of developing new community-engaged research collaborations focused on the health of Hispanic communities in the WWAMI region. To address this aim, the conference will include: (1) Keynote presentations by regional leaders of community-based organizations, leading Hispanic health scholars, and government policy makers;and (2) Small group discussion sessions among community-based organization leaders, academic investigators, health care providers, and government policy makers.
Aim 2 : To publish conference proceedings that identify specific opportunities for research collaborations grounded in the views of conference participants in three thematic areas: behavioral health, chronic illness prevention and treatment, and health policy - all focused on Latino communities in the WWAMI region.
Aim 3 : To create a website for the dissemination of the conference proceedings and to foster ongoing communication among conference participants. The website will provide an archive including videos of keynote presentations, speakers'slides, conference evaluations, and a wiki that allows user to read and post comments and questions. The conference organizing committee consists of a diverse group of individuals from leading research institutions, academia, Latino-serving community-based organizations, and policy makers from the WWAMI region. Invited conference participants will include Latino community members, academic investigators interested in engaging with Latino communities, and health policy makers from throughout the WWAMI region. The proposed conference will be held at the University of Washington's South Lake Union Facilities located in Seattle, WA in early 2014.
The number of Latinos in the five-state WWAMI region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho) has increased significantly over the last three decades such that Latinos are now the largest and fastest growing minority group in the region. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research addressing the health problems facing this population. To address this gap, the Community Outreach Research Translation (CORT) core of the Institute for Translational Health Sciences (ITHS) is proposing to hold a 2-day conference with the overall goal of fostering new community-engaged research along three themes: behavioral health, chronic illness treatment and prevention, and health policy. Conference participants will include Latino community members, academic investigators, and government policy makers from the WWAMI region.
