This program is a videotape of the June 24, 2004 panel with members of the Congressional Minority Caucus that was broadcast in the 10th Annual Summer Public Health Research Institute and Videoconference on Minority Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Public Health, Minority Health Project.

The program launches a dialogue between members of Congress and researchers to explore ways that research can become codified into policy more quickly and have greater impact. The program consists of a moderated panel discussion, with two representatives of the Congressional Minority Caucus speaking from the U.S. House recording studio on Capitol Hill. Caucus members explore health care (including language, insurance and health-care infrastructure barriers), cultural competency and diversity among the health-care work force, policy issues affecting health disparities, and research and data needs to address health-care inequalities. These four topics have been identified by the Institute of Medicine and addressed in the Healthcare Equality and Accountability Act and the Closing the Health Care Gap Act of 2004.

Stephanie L. Crayton, UNC Health Care media relations manager and a former television medical reporter, moderates the panel. Caucus members are: Rep. Donna M. Christensen of the U.S. Virgin Islands, representing the Congressional Black Caucus, and Rep. Madeleine Z. Bordallo of Guam, representing the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. (Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, representing the Congressional Native American Caucus, and Rep. Hilda Solis of California, representing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, were unable to participate at the last minute.)

Four researchers comprise a reactor panel: Annice Eu-Shin Kim, a health behavior and health education doctoral candidate in the UNC Chapel Hill School of Public Health and Dr. Bill Jenkins, research professor of public health and associate director of the Research Center on Health Disparities at Morehouse College in Atlanta, participate in Part 1 of the program.

UNC-Chapel Hill's annual Summer Public Health Research Institute and Videoconference is a unique forum that enables experts in the area of health disparities to reach an audience of several hundred researchers, educators, administrators, practitioners, and students throughout the U.S. Initiated in 1995, its aims include the identification and reduction of barriers to conducting health research in minority communities. Read more on the UNC website.

For more information on this or related programs, please visit the Minority Health Project website.

This videotape is Part 1 of 2.