Webinar: COVID-19 Health Disparities, Respiratory Illness, and Communities of Color
Wednesday, October 7, 2020 | 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM CT
About the webinar
As the global COVID-19 pandemic has gripped the world, crucial health inequity concerns are already emerging. While health disparities for marginalized communities are not new, the pandemic has thrust health disparities and systemic health inequities to the forefront of the national health conversation. Recently released data from the non-partisan APM Research Lab indicate that African Americans are dying from COVID-19 at almost three times the rate of white Americans. Furthermore, COVID-19 health disparities are driven in large part to highly-prevalent, chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disorders, and diabetes, that disproportionately impact communities of color. Chronic respiratory illnesses also make COVID-19 particularly dangerous. Respiratory health has seen inequality for years, both in the prevalence of respiratory diseases in marginalized patient groups as well as access to care. Respiratory diseases such as asthma, lung diseases, and pulmonary hypertension are the third-leading cause of death in America, and they are some of the costliest diseases for those affected. Furthermore, according to the 2015 Kelly Report on Health Disparities in America, African-American children suffer the highest-burden of asthma with more than 16 percent of children likely to have asthma compared to Hispanic (9 percent) or non-Hispanic White (8 percent) children, and the prevalence of asthma is increasing among low-income minority children. This webinar brings together leading respiratory illness experts to discuss systemic inequities and social determinants of health that make communities of color more susceptible to respiratory illness as well as discuss best practices to address these disparities.
Webinar Panelists
Lynn Hanessian is the Chief Strategist for Edelman’s US Health team. In her position, she brings together industry, content, and media expertise to craft campaigns to achieve the business objectives of her clients. Her focus in on health and science engagement initiatives reaching a wide range of audiences. Lynn has a deep background in health, medical and science strategic positioning. She has led national and global teams supporting pharmaceutical and medical products at all stages of the product life cycle. She has been actively involved in marketing, communications, advocacy relations, professional society engagement, corporate reputation programs and crisis communications efforts. Lynn’s background includes expertise in corporate and foundation relations, medical association strategy and philanthropy.
She has a long history of volunteer leadership in the patient advocacy community. In addition to her participation on the board of the Center for Healthcare Innovation, Lynn is a member of the President’s Council of the Cancer Support Community and is a member of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America Board of Directors. She earned an AB in economics from the University of Chicago.
Dr. Susan Corbridge, Ph.D.
Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy & Sleep Medicine at UI Health
Dr. Susan Corbridge is the Executive Associate Dean in the UIC College of Nursing. She is a Clinical Professor in the College of Nursing, Department of Biobehavioral Health Science and the Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy and Sleep Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She leads nurse practitioner and interprofessional education efforts and provides asthma and COPD education to nurse practitioners throughout the country. She is a board-certified nurse practitioner with over 20 years of experience, and she specializes in COPD, asthma, and smoking cessation.
Mr. Kenneth Mendez
CEO & President of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America
Kenneth Mendez became CEO and President of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) in early 2018. He came to AAFA from AdvaMed, the world’s largest medical technology association, where he served as Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer for 12 years. Since joining AAFA, he has led the organization in establishing a new multi-year strategic plan that emphasizes dramatically reducing the impact of asthma and allergies on the underserved and tripling the size of AAFA’s online asthma community. The new strategic plan’s vision is for AAFA to be recognized as the most trusted ally serving the asthma and allergy community.
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