News
Sage President Presents Research on "Eliminating Healthcare Disparities"
April 24th, 2009
Albany and Troy, NY - The Sage Colleges' President Dr. Susan C. Scrimshaw, Ph.D., has focused her scholarly research on the health care needs of underserved populations -- individuals with AIDs, Hispanic and African-American populations and women and children -- and will share her conclusions for how we should meet those needs in a first step toward helping to serve the local populations in Albany and Troy where The Sage Colleges is located. She's invited some of the local organizations serving those populations -- Joseph's Shelter for Homeless in Troy and Whitney Young, among others -- to join her when she presents "Eliminating Healthcare Disparities" on Friday April 24 at 11:30 a.m. in Bush memorial Hall on the Russell Sage College Campus (corner of 1st and Congress streets, Troy).
Dr. Scrimshaw has testified before Congress on Health Care Issues and Appropriation of Funding and is the author of numerous books. Recently, she was appointed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to plan the work of the Commission on Education for Global Heath and the Society Scholars Program for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
President Barack Obama has put health care reform on the top of his agenda. Currently, 50 million Americans are without health care insurance and that number is growing with each passing day as news of more layoffs continue. The population the President has expressed the most concern is the underserved -- the same group Scrimshaw would like to work with in the Capital Region.
A respected and accomplished scholar, Dr. Scrimshaw's research areas include community participatory research methods, addressing health disparities, improving pregnancy outcomes, violence prevention, health literacy, and culturally appropriate delivery of health care. She is the author of five books and numerous journal articles, book chapters and reports.
Dr. Scrimshaw has held numerous leadership positions in higher education institutions across the U.S. Most recently, she served as president of Simmons College in Boston. Prior to her post at Simmons, she served 12 years as the dean of the School of Public Health and professor of community health sciences and anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Prior to those roles, she was associate dean of public health and professor of public health and anthropology at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
In the public health field, Dr. Scrimshaw has served with distinction on the Chicago Board of Health and the Illinois State Board of Health. She is a former chair of the Association of Schools of Public Health.
Active on a national level as well, Dr. Scrimshaw is a member of the governing council of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies. When she was elected to the IOM in 1993, she and her father became the first father/daughter pair in the IOM. She has chaired the IOM Committee on Communication for Behavior Change: Improving the Health of Diverse Populations, and served as a member of many IOM Committees, most recently, the Committee on Health Literacy. Dr. Scrimshaw also serves as a member of the National Academy of Science (NAS) Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPUP).
Dr. Scrimshaw serves in leadership capacities in numerous professional and academic organizations. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), as well as of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology, and is a past president of the Society for Medical Anthropology. Internationally Dr. Scrimshaw has served as president of the board of directors of the U.S.-Mexico Foundation for Science.
For her work on the health of Latino populations, she received a gold medal from former President Vicente Fox of Mexico. Her many awards also include the Margaret Mead Award from the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology.
Dr. Scrimshaw was born in Rochester, NY and raised in Guatemala until age 16, when she and her family returned to the Boston area, where her father chaired the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Please join the Sage community, local health care officials and some of the local organizations serving those living without proper health care on Friday, April 24 at 11:30 a.m. For more information, contact Sheila Carmody at (518) 244-4593.
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About The Sage Colleges
The Sage Colleges is an independent comprehensive university with two four-year undergraduate colleges: Russell Sage College for women in Troy, N.Y and the coeducational Sage College of Albany. Through SCA's Sage After Work program, working adults with prior college credit can complete the bachelors degree in a flexible schedule and format. The coeducational Sage Graduate School offers master's and doctoral degrees on both campuses.
