The 46th Annual Minority Health Conference was a success!
Thank you to our attendees, keynotes, breakout session speakers, poster presenters, sponsors, and everyone who helped make the conference possible.
46th MHC ProgramPlease fill out this evaluation survey for feedback on the 46th Annual Minority Health Conference!
EvaluationAbout the Theme
The theme of the 46th Annual Minority Health Conference, Bridging the Digital Divide: Leveraging Technology and Data for Health Equity, underscored the critical role of technology and data in shaping health outcomes. While technological advancements hold the potential to revolutionize public health, they also risk reinforcing inequities when not designed with marginalized communities in mind.
The Minority Health Conference explored the digital divide as a key determinant of health, examining disparities in access to digital tools, internet connectivity, and data-driven innovations. Minority populations often face significant barriers to benefiting from these advancements, particularly when digital solutions were not tailored to their unique needs. Additionally, the lack of representative data on these communities further limit the effectiveness of public health interventions.
This year’s conference highlighted researchers and innovators working to develop responsible, accessible, and inclusive digital health solutions. Discussions centered on the ethical use of data, the impact of artificial intelligence in public health, and strategies for ensuring technology-driven interventions equitably served all populations. By leveraging these tools thoughtfully, public health professionals are working towards bridging the gap between innovation and inclusion, striving for a future where technology advanced—rather than hindered—health equity.
Theme Announcement
46th Annual Minority Health Conference:
Fay Cobb Payton, PhD, MBA
Biography
Dr. Fay Cobb Payton is an award-winning researcher, international speaker and entrepreneur. She is a Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Innovation, Ful Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Rutgers University – Newark and an affiliate faculty in the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. She is the inaugural director of the Institute for Data, Research and Innovation Science (IDRIS) at Rutgers University – Newark.
She is also Professor Emerita and was a Full Professor of Information Technology/Analytics at North Carolina State University. She completed a rotation as a Program Director at the National Science Foundation where she initiated the CISE Research Expansion Program, and worked on several initiatives, such as Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science; AI Fairness, Equity, Accountability & Transparency; and Research Expansion and Cloud Computing with partnerships with Amazon, Google and Microsoft. She received the NSF Director’s Award during her rotation at the agency.
She serves on several boards and committees, including the National Academics of Science, Engineering and Medicine, National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource Pilot, North Carolina A&T University Board of Visitors, Georgia Institute of Technology Industrial & Systems Engineering Advisory, Association for Computing Machinery, Clark Atlanta STEM United and others. She has published over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles, conference publications and book chapters on topics of data quality, AI bias/ethics, healthcare and innovation.
Dr. Payton has worked in industry as an engineer, developer and consultant. She is a Forbes AI Contributor and author of Leveraging Intersectionality: Seeing and Not Seeing. She earned her Ph.D. in Information and Decision Systems from Case Western Reserve University with an emphasis in Health Systems, an MBA in Decision Science from Clark Atlanta University, a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a BA in Accounting from Clark Atlanta University.
Ivor Braden Horn, MD, MPH
Biography
Dr. Ivor Braden Horn is an advisor, investor, physician and technology executive with experience in entrepreneurial, venture, academic medicine, health system and research organizations. She is an internationally recognized leader in health equity, social determinants of health and healthcare innovation having spoken to such diverse audiences as the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), FDA, the Atlantic Festival, the World Health Summit, HLTH (US & Europe), SXSW, and Cannes Lion. Most recently, she served as the founding director and first Chief Health Equity Officer at Google, where she led the company-wide strategy to develop, launch and scale health equity within research and product development to ensure they were diverse, fair, accessible and inclusive. While at Google, she also led a study to develop the HEAL (Health Equity Assessment of machine Learning performance) framework to quantitatively assess the performance equity of health AI technologies. The HEAL framework is a methodology to assess whether health AI technologies prioritise performance for patient populations experiencing worse outcomes, that is complementary to existing fairness metrics.
Prior to her role at Google, Dr. Horn served as Chief Medical Officer at Accolade (acquired by Transcarent). Before Accolade, she served as Medical Director of the Center for Diversity and Health Equity at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She holds an MD and MPH and has authored several peer-reviewed journal publications on health communication and health equity.
Dr. Horn currently serves on the boards of Boston Children’s Hospital, Care Academy and Acclinate.
About the Minority Health Conference
The Minority Health Conference is the largest and longest-running student-led health conference in the country. The conference aims to raise awareness around health disparities and mobilize students, academics, and community members to take action for change. Started in 1977 by the Minority Student Caucus, the conference is nationally recognized and respected, attracting more than 500 attendees each year and hundreds more who view it via webcast.
Organized by the UNC Minority Student Caucus at the Gillings School of Global Public Health.
