Decades of underinvestment in rural communities, health care, and public health institutions left rural America uniquely vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the pandemic prompted creative actions to meet immediate health and social needs and illuminated opportunities to address long standing rural health disparities. Acting on these lessons is critical to narrowing rural health disparities. This talk discusses the recent Health Affairs commentary, “Reimagining Rural Health Equity: Understanding Disparities And Orienting Policy, Practice, And Research In Rural America” and offers principles for addressing the rural health disparities.

Learning Objectives: After this webinar, attendees will be able to:
-Describe some of the major drivers of rural health disparities.
-Define rural health equity.
-Discuss the role of diverse methods, including qualitative and community-based research, in addressing rural health disparities.

Speakers: Anne Sosin, MPH, is a public health practitioner and researcher at Dartmouth College. She has more than 15 years of experience leading global health and health equity programs at the international, national, and local level. Her current research focuses on rural health equity, public health policy, and homelessness in Northern New England. Professor Sosin serves as a lecturer in the Departments of Anthropology and Geography at Dartmouth. She holds a BA from Dartmouth College and an MPH from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Elizabeth Carpenter-Song, PhD, is a medical and psychological anthropologist at Dartmouth College. Her research strives to center the lived experiences of rural community members marginalized by poverty, housing insecurity, mental illness, and substance use. Through ethnographic methods, she engages with people and communities to learn about lived experiences of illness, suffering, and experiences navigating through complex landscapes of care. In partnership with people with lived experience, direct service providers, and researchers, she aims to translate insights from close attention to families’ lived experiences in rural New England into actionable recommendations for change to improve health and wellbeing in the region. She holds a BA from Dartmouth College and a PhD from Case Western Reserve University.

Event start time: 12:00 pm

Event end time: 01:00 pm