A Stark Divide: Health Disparities in Louisiana Spur Conference on LSU Campus

Joel Baines, Dean of the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, is gathering researchers, public officials and members of the community to vet ideas for a healthier state. The conference will take place on May 3 at the LSU Center for Computation & Technology.

04/15/2019

What’s the reason for this conference?

Health and well-being is part of the LSU strategic plan, and  the vet school is the medical unit on the Baton Rouge campus, so it made sense for us to head up the health and well-being part. The focus could have been local, or global, but a survey of potential donors—the strategic plan is linked with the capital campaign—suggested that LSU as the flagship in Louisiana should be helping Louisiana residents, primarily. While there are healthy populations in the state, there are also not-so-healthy populations—north of Baton Rouge and the rural community, for example—whereas South Baton Rouge benefits from substantial health care infrastructure. It seemed that this difference, between north and south of Baton Rouge alone, could serve as a good model for how—since it’s in our own backyard—LSU could affect health disparities across the state.

How did this idea come about?

Initially, we called together a meeting with Pennington Biomedical Research Center, the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans and community members. It highlighted the different attitudes about health disparities and how they’re thought of in different communities. Here in our ivory tower, we think of health disparities as a research problem, something that really needs to be studied so we can effect change. But in the communities, they’re sick and tired of hearing how sick or underserved they are. They really just want us to start doing things. That meeting was an eye-opener for me, which set up this second conference and potential granting opportunities.

You mentioned the difference between North and South Baton Rouge. Tell me more about the state of health in Louisiana as you see it.

Louisiana is first in tobacco use in the nation, and we’re high in HIV infection and colon cancer rates. Obesity, diabetes—Louisiana is often ranked 49th or 50th in the nation. We can certainly do better.

What do you hope the outcome of this conference will be?

This conference is set up so we frame the problem and focus on opportunities for granting, opportunities for people at LSU and the community to collaborate and address any aspect of health disparities they choose. It could be data gathering, education or intervention strategies. This conference is meant to attract the sharpest minds to the health disparities problem overall.

Ultimately, we want to impact the larger community to fulfill our mission as a land-grant institution. In the past, it was all about agriculture, but society has changed. It’s really about elevating the state of the common man and woman, including their health.

We also want more people to know about some of the good things that are happening. Dr. Cathy Rami is a physical therapist in northern Baton Rouge, African American, who’s started this because she wanted a pool to help rehabilitate her patients. Now she is promoting the development of a wellness center that’s going to be housed at the site of Memorial Stadium, which is right at the junction of North and South Baton Rouge. It’s going to attract children to league play, and their parents. The medical residents at Our Lady of the Lake will staff a clinic within that center so they can do wellness checks and screenings for cancer, diabetes, heart health, etc. Preventative medicine is the best way to deal with a lot of these problems, and lack of it contributes to health disparities in different populations.

We need to inform and involve the community, or it won’t be an effective research or intervention opportunity. You can’t talk down to people, you have to talk with them, and I’m hoping that we’ll make some friends and allies that will advance this cause. There will be a panel before lunch and at the conclusion of the program to give attendees an opportunity to bring the speakers into dialogue with each other and with the attendees.

We should get an interesting set of grant proposals that then might parlay into larger ones. There’s a lot of grant money available nationally to address this huge problem. We’ve just not been tapping in to it very effectively. Academics can come up with great ideas, but linking up with the community is always a stumbling block. Whether we get some of these big grants or not, we stand to learn a lot from the grant review process, and in some cases we might find that a project is so important that we can find the resources to make it happen on our own.

Ultimately, we want to impact the larger community to fulfill our mission as a land-grant institution. In the past, it was all about agriculture, but society has changed. It’s really about elevating the state of the common man and woman, including their health.

I understand that someone from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), will speak at the conference?

Yes, they will come and talk about framing the problem and how we can approach it.

 

Find more information about the conference on the LBRN website.

 

Elsa Hahne
LSU Office of Research & Economic Development
225-578-4774
ehahne@lsu.edu