From October 13-16, 2020, NYU Langone’s Section for Health Equity in the Department of Population Health hosted, in collaboration with NYU Langone’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), Office of Diversity Affairs, and the NYU-CUNY Prevention Research Center, its 6th annual Health Disparities Symposium. For the first time, this symposium offered Continuing Medical Education (CME) and Continuing Nursing Education (CNE) credits free of charge to all participants. Over 750 people registered for the symposium, with 585 unique attendees in total. The theme for this year's conference was turning "Research Into Action". As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, it highlighted continued structural racism faced by communities of color. One main takeaway from the conference is that now more than ever, it is essential that research addressing inequities in health be translatable and actionable.

The keynote address was given by Mary Bassett, former NYC Health Commissioner, and this year’s Controversies in Population Health Panel examined how the Public Charge Rule is exacerbating the public health crisis in immigrant communities. Other panel discussions included a CTSI Community Engagement Panel and the Role of Community Health Workers in Addressing Structural Racism. Speakers, moderators, and panelists from the Department of Population Health included Joseph Ravenell, Natasha Williams, Nadia Islam, Azizi Seixas, and Alison Bateman-House. The agenda lists all speakers and talk topics from the event.

The symposium also featured 28 poster presentations, with awards given in the following categories:

Best Community-based Organization Research Poster

Gabriela Drucker, Institute of Human Nutrition, Columbia University Irving Medical Center & Nandini Kannan, MPH, Ambulatory Care Network, New York-Presbyterian. CBO collaborating partners: Mexican Coalition for the Empowerment of Youth & Families Inc., Nido de Esperanza NYC. “An effective clinical-community partnership model to address food insecurity in response to COVID-19”

Best Student Research Poster

Oyemwenosa Avenbuan, Department of Environmental Medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “Environmental Contamination and its Impact on a Native American Tribe”

Best Programmatic or Research Staff Research Poster

Chenyue Zhao, PhD, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “Impacts of Prolonged Parent-Child Separation on the Well-Being of Chinese Immigrant Families: A Mixed-Methods Exploratory Study”

Best Post-Doctoral Fellow or Faculty Research Poster

Lan N. Ðoàn PhD, MPH, CPH, Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “Forging Partnerships for Rapid Response to COVID-19 to Support Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Communities”

• Describing racial/ethnic inequalities in the rates of opioid initiation, use, misuse, opioid use disorder, overdose, and consequences of use
• Measuring the syndemic of opioid misuse with other psychosocial, social, and structural vulnerability factors among racial/ethnic minority groups
• Examining the social, policy and structural drivers of racial/ethnic inequalities in the overdose epidemic and effects of the epidemic
• Evaluating racial/ethnic inequalities in the impact of drug, treatment, social, and health policies on opioid-related harms
• Evaluating promising approaches to address racial/ethnic inequalities in access to treatment for opioid use disorder
• Evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on opioid use initiation, misuse, opioid use disorder, and overdose
• Evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on policies that affect access to treatment for opioid use disorder
• Describing how COVID-19 related events have affected stigmas related to drug use, racism, and access to social and medical programs for people who use drugs