Center for Health Equity Sustains Maya Angelou’s Vision
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – April 4, 2018 – The
legacy of Maya Angelou lives on at Wake
Forest Baptist Medical Center.
“By
serving the minority community, it must be known that the entire community is
served,” Angelou once said. “One hand washes the other. A healthy minority
community bodes for a healthy majority community.”
The Maya Angelou Center for
Health Equity (MACHE) at Wake Forest Baptist is devoted to
closing the health gap between minorities and the rest of the population. The
center supports research on health issues prevalent among African-Americans,
Hispanics and Native Americans; develops health care approaches based on
research findings; promotes medical and biomedical science career development
among underrepresented populations; and conducts educational and outreach
programs aimed at reducing disparities in health and health care.
MACHE
was established in 2002 as the Maya Angelou Research Center on Minority Health by
Wake Forest Baptist in collaboration with Angelou and other local individuals
and institutions. In 2012 the renamed center was designated a Health
Disparities Center of Excellence by the National Institutes of Health,
recognition that included a $5 million grant.
“Health
equity will be achieved when there are no gaps or inequalities in death rates
due to gender, income, race and other social determinants,’’ said MACHE’s
interim director, Carlos Rodriguez, M.D., M.P.H., professor of epidemiology and
prevention at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist. “The
Maya Angelou Center advances health equity by moving scientific discovery to
action.”
Angelou,
the internationally acclaimed poet, memoirist and civil rights activist who
also was a professor at Wake Forest University and a 2010 recipient of the
Presidential Medal of Freedom, died in May 2014. Today (April 4) would have
been her 90th birthday.
4/4/2018http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2018/Center_for_Health_Equity_Sustains_Maya_Angelou_s_Vision.htm
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