Welcome

There is no time in our history where the clarion call for a transformative commitment to addressing vast disparities in health has been more evident.

Georgetown University, with its inherent strengths in social justice, stands poised to answer.

A health disparity is any inequity of treatment or services that may based on ethnicity, gender, physical or mental disability, occupation, geography, age or educational level.  It may also refer to differences in health conditions attributed to environment, or other social issues – such as poverty – that create inequality.
 
Because the causes of the health disparities are multifactorial, an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach is required to address these issues effectively.
 
Building on our strengths across three campuses - main, law, and medical - we have launched the Georgetown University Initiative to Reduce Health Disparities, a new interdisciplinary initiative to address the growing health inequalities in our society, locally and globally.  
 
Borne of strategic planning at Georgetown University Medical Center, this effort will embolden interdisciplinary collaboration across the University’s campuses with a diverse group of scholars to conduct research, education and outreach efforts that address the global and local inequities in health and health care.
 
The University-wide Initiative to Reduce Health Disparities seeks to identify, reduce, and ultimately eliminate disparities in health and health care by conducting broad based research, education and community engagement.

This new Initiative will further enhance an important research portfolio within the University, train future leaders in research in health disparities, develop leadership for related health policy, prepare professionals and future professionals to deliver state of the art services and programs to eliminate health disparities, and provide a vehicle to move from research to practice and policy.

This Initiative has the enormous potential to harness research, practice and policy for notable progress in battling disparities. It is consistent with the University’s ongoing commitment to identifying ways in which our research and scholarship can make contributions to the betterment of human health.

See Photos from the Initiative launch event, hosted by Georgetown President John DeGioia on April 16, 2012.

Co-Chairs

Lucile Adams-Campbell, PhD, Professor of Oncology, Associate Director, Minority Health & Disparities, Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University Medical Center

Phyllis Magrab, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and Director, Center for Child and Human Development, Georgetown University Medical Center