Dr. Gloria Callwood, chair of the Division of Nursing Education at the University of the Virgin Islands, will serve as a presenter at the federal Healthy People 2010 Summit in Newark, N.J., scheduled for Dec. 5 and 6. The summit, sponsored by Region II of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will bring together health care providers, administrators, community leaders and public health professionals in an effort to measure progress towards the elimination of health disparities that are attributed to gender, race, education and economic factors. Region II includes New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Callwood is director of the Caribbean Export Center for Research and Education in Health Disparities which was established in 2004 within the Division of Nursing Education at UVI. Export Center funding is provided by the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, an arm of the National Institutes of Health.

Her summit remarks will "focus on how the Caribbean Export Center has tackled the issue of health disparities in the Virgin Islands," Callwood said.

The Caribbean Export Center's purpose is to develop capacity within UVI's Division of Nursing to conduct research on health disparities specific to the Virgin Islands, Callwood said. "The goal," she added, "is to better understand and work toward eliminating those disparities."

One of the more beneficial aspects of the approach taken by the Caribbean Export Center has been to pair UVI faculty members involved in the program with senior researchers from such prestigious institutions as Johns Hopkins University, Wayne State University, the University of Pittsburg and Case Western Reserve University. "They act as co-directors and mentors for us and have really been a great asset for us," Callwood said.

Callwood also noted that all UVI junior and senior nursing students in the 2005-06 class were certified in human subject protection, a key requirement for individuals undertaking research with human subjects. She added that four study proposals developed through the Export Center have recently been approved for implementation. These include: a study of breast cancer risk management in the USVI; an evaluation of access to health care among Afro-Caribbean women in St. John and St. Thomas as compared to African American women in Cleveland, Ohio; a church-based diabetes care survey in the USVI; and a study of factors that affect self management by persons with chronic diseases in the USVI.

Other Virgin Islanders scheduled to speak at the Healthy People Summit are Phyllis Wallace, deputy commissioner of the V.I. Department of Health, Barbara Lee Jackson, executive director of V.I. Perinatal Inc., and Sharon Williams, director of chronic disease prevention at the V.I. Department of Health.

For more information contact Callwood at 693-1291.