Congrats to the Organizers of the National Center for Health Behavioral Change

Aloha Everyone:

I just returned from the National Center for Health Behavioral Change symposium that Dr. Jay Chunn organized. Dr. Chunn attended our meeting in Hawaii on July 28th and talked about the symposium at that time.

I wanted to let you all know that the symposium was, indeed, a tremendous success with speakers describing some of the state-of-the- art ways that persons from diverse fields and disciplines and community activists are helping to transform the public health profession. A numer of persons in the NIMC as well as others who have recently been included in our expanded group took part in this important national symposium - a symposium that was directed to finding ways to ameliorate the health disparities that exist among millions of persons from diverse cultural-racil groups in the United States.

In this regard, Dr. Derald Sue delivered an excellent presentation in racism. Dr. Beverly O'Bryant was outstanding in highlighting the research she, her colleagues, and students at Bowie State University are doing regarding a broad range of health related issues as they pertain to African American males. Dr. Linda Myers provided a profound message about the importance of viewing health from an optimal health perspective that is rooted in an African cosmology. I was able to discuss ways in which multicultural competency training could be infused into public health training curricula.

Persons who are interested in accessing information about the National Center for Health Behavioral Change are encouraged to go to their webpage at nchbc.org You will be able to access video clips and other documents generated from the recent national symposium at this site in the near future.

Congrats to Dr. Jay Chunn and our colleagues for helping to make this event a tremendous success.

In the continuing struggle for justice peace,

Michael D'Andrea