UAB MHERC 2025 Health Equity Research Symposium

Health Equity Across the Life Course

Thursday, April 3, 2025
Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex (BJCC)
2100 Richard Arrington Jr Blvd N, Birmingham, AL 35203

The UAB Health Equity Research Symposium highlights the work of undergraduate, graduate, post-doctoral and faculty investigators in clinical, behavioral, social, and community-based research related to health equity and health disparities. The keynote address for this year’s symposium will be given by Dr. David R. Williams, Norman Professor of Public Health, at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Every year the symposium highlights the work of undergraduate, graduate, post-doctoral and faculty investigators in clinical, behavioral, social, and community-based research related to health equity and health disparities.

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Agenda - Coming Soon!

This year’s symposium is being held in conjunction with the Southern Gerontological Society’s (SGS) 46th Annual Meeting and Conference, Building Bridges: Collaborations and Communities in Aging, to be held April 3-6, 2025, at the BJCC. For more information about attending and/or presenting at the SGS Annual Meeting and Conference, please visit their website: 2025 Annual Conference | Southern Gerontological Society | SGS.

About the 2025 Keynote Speaker

Dr. David R. Williams

David Williams is the Norman Professor of Public Health at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and a Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. His prior academic appointments were at Yale University and the University of Michigan. He received his early education in St. Lucia, holds master’s degrees in Divinity and Public Health and a Ph.D in sociology from the University of Michigan.

He is an internationally recognized authority on social influences on health and has been invited to keynote scientific conferences around the world. The author of more than 500 scientific papers, his research has enhanced our understanding of the ways in which race, socioeconomic status, stress, racism, health behavior and religious involvement can affect health. The Everyday Discrimination Scale that he developed is the most widely used measure of discrimination in health studies.

He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK. He has a been ranked as the Most Cited Black Scholar in the Social Sciences, worldwide, and as one of the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds. He has received distinguished contribution awards from the American Sociological Association, the American Psychological Association and the New York Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Williams has been involved in the development of health policy in the US and elsewhere. Currently, he serves on the Board of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the UK’s National Health Service’s Race and Health Observatory, and as a member of the Kellogg Foundation’s Solidarity Council on Racial Equity. He was also a key scientific advisor to the award-winning PBS film series, Unnatural Causes: Is inequality Making Us Sick? He has been featured in his TED Talk and by most of America’s top print and television news organizations and Toronto’s Public Television (TVO).

Past Symposia