COVID-19’s disproportionate impacts across the United States have elevated racial and ethnic health disparities within the national consciousness like nothing else in recent years. Now healthcare professionals who want to be part of the solution for disparities across the broader healthcare landscape have a timely tool at their disposal: Health Disparities 2021, a CME-certified livestreamed virtual conference offered by Cleveland Clinic the afternoon of Friday, April 16, and the morning of Saturday, April 17.

The conference, subtitled “Moving Forward to Close the Gap in Minority and Ethnic Populations,” is sponsored by the Minority Stroke Program within Cleveland Clinic’s Cerebrovascular Center in partnership with Cleveland Clinic’s Multicultural Health Center of Excellence. While it gives special attention to disparities in stroke care, the agenda extends to other health disparities as well and to practical strategies for overcoming disparities across specialties.

“Greater awareness of the major issues surrounding stroke, heart attack and other health disparities is needed, as awareness is the first step in bringing about positive change,” says conference director Gwendolyn Lynch, MD, Director of Cleveland Clinic’s Minority Stroke Program. “This conference will provide the useful facts underlying stroke and other health disparities, ways to overcome obstacles that underlie these disparities, and an opportunity to network and establish multidisciplinary solutions toward eliminating health disparities.”

The conference’s dozen expert faculty members hail from Cleveland Clinic and other leading U.S. medical centers and represent specialties ranging from neurology and vascular neurology to internal medicine, urology, obstetrics/gynecology and more. They will use a mix of lectures, case presentations, panel discussions and patient perspectives to engage the target audience of physicians and other healthcare professionals from across the spectrum of clinical specialties.

Areas of focus including the following, among others:

• How social determinants of health feed into health disparities
• Socioeconomic consequences of health disparities
• Disparities in preventive care in men and women
• Urban/rural differences in stroke care and beyond
• Role of the doctor-patient relationship in eliminating disparities
• Culturally sensitive caregiving and building patient trust

The conference runs from 2 to 6 p.m. ET Friday, April 16, and from 7:55 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. ET Saturday, April 17. Registration details and a full agenda and faculty list are at ccfcme.org/healthdisparities21.

This activity has been approved for AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™.