CENS Technical Seminar Series

Addressing Health Disparities with Participatory and Personal Mobile Sensing

Invited Speaker: Peter Capone-Newton
Date: October 9, 2009
Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Venue: BH 4760

Abstract

Health disparities are differences in health outcomes between majority and minority populations. These health outcome differences result from complex social, political, economic and health care contexts. Despite spending more per capita on health care than any other country in the world, health disparities are common and persistent in the United States, reflecting the important role of factors outside the health care system for health outcomes in the U.S. This presentation will briefly outline current health disparities in the U.S. and then discuss the challenges to building conceptual models of how social, political and economic contexts influence health outcomes and contribute to health disparities. Data will be discussed that illustrate these complexities within Los Angeles County. Participatory and Personal Mobile Sensing each present unique opportunities to understand the mechanisms of health disparities and to aid in interventions to address these disparities.

Biography

Peter Capone-Newton M.D., M.P.H., M.A. is a National Research Service Award (NRSA) funded Health Services Research Fellow in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research in the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a Ph.D. student in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA. Board certified in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine, his research interests focus on the role of urban form and spatial relationships in chronic disease health outcomes. He has collaborated with several CENS researchers on research proposals which apply Participatory and Personal Mobile Sensing to health related topics.