Six win 2013 Charles Barkley Health Disparities Investigator Awards

Annual UAB minority health disparities symposium features latest in research, gives six Barkley awards

Writer: Jennifer B. Causey

Six researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) received 2013 Charles Barkley Health Disparities Investigator Awards at the 8th Annual UAB Health Disparities Research Symposium, an event designed to keep scientists at UAB and other institutions across the Southeast at the forefront of health disparities research.

MHRCSymposiumLR_sSponsored by the UAB Minority Health & Health Disparities Research Center (MHRC), the symposium hosted 200 faculty, students and staff, and included a poster competition, plenary sessions, oral breakout sessions and a panel discussion.

Charles Barkley Health Disparities Research Investigator Awards went to the three best oral and poster presentations. Winners received cash awards of $200 (1st place), $150 (2nd place) and $100 (3rd place) from an endowment to the UAB MHRC by NBA Hall of Fame basketball player and Leeds, Ala., native Charles Barkley.

The 2013 Charles Barkley Health Disparities Investigator Award winners are:

Oral Presentations


Poster Presentations

  • Molly Bernhard, B.S., master of public health student, UAB School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, for “Identifying Environmental Health Priorities in Underserved Minority Populations: a Study of Rural versus Urban Communities”
  • Courtney Williams, B.S., master of public health student, UAB School of Public Health, for
    “Disparities Between Urban and Rural Residence in Adolescents with Sickle Cell Anemia”
  • Miriam Van Dyke, student and Bill Gates Millennium scholar, UAB School of Health Professions, for “Rare Histologic Subtypes, Race, and Survival in the UAB Breast Consortium Study”

“This year we focused on the convergence of biology, behavior and socioeconomics that produces disparities in health across the life course,” said Mona Fouad, M.D., M.P.H., director of the UAB MHRC and UAB Division of Preventive Medicine. “Our presenters covered a broad spectrum of studies, from basic and clinical science to psychosocial and community-based research. We are very pleased to see the interest in health disparities grow rapidly over the past ten years.”

The keynote address, “Shaping Neighborhoods for Health and Health Equity,” was given by Hugh Barton, emeritus professor at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK, and special advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) Healthy Cities European Program. Teresa Seeman, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology and medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, presented the plenary session, “Application of Biomarker Data to the Study of Social Determinants of Health.” A panel discussion on the European and U.S. experiences in promoting a comprehensive approach to the social determinants of health was delivered by three public health experts from the UK, as well as local panelists including Mark Wilson, M.D., of the Jefferson County Department of Health, Eric Jack, Ph.D., of the UAB School of Business, and William Cockerham, Ph.D., of the UAB Department of Sociology. The symposium concluded with the award presentations and a screening of the MHRC’s video, “Birmingham: Village of 100.”