Igniting Hope conference aims to end race-based health disparities

On Sept. 30, 300 community members along with UB students, faculty and staff gathered for the sixth annual “Igniting Hope” conference. The gathering has matured into what organizers describe as a movement aimed at bringing lasting change to the region by ending race-based disparities and their devastating impacts on the health of Black people, Hispanic people and other underrepresented groups.

The movement and the conference clearly benefit from the “UB-supported institute, which indicates the university’s strong support of our work with the community, providing critical longevity to the movement,” said organizer Timothy F. Murphy, SUNY Distinguished Professor and director of UB’s Community Health Equity Research Institute and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

President Satish K. Tripathi made welcoming remarks in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, noting that health inequity is a problem that will take the entire university community to address, “regardless of specialty.”

But doing so will require the clear demonstration that change is possible, said Rev. George Nicholas, pastor of the Lincoln Memorial United Methodist Church, CEO of the Buffalo Center for Health Equity and a conference organizer.

Quoting Malcolm X, who famously said “Education is the passport to the future,” Nicholas noted that three-quarters of third-graders in the Buffalo Public Schools are not reading at grade level.

“If they’re already behind in third grade, how can they ever dream of getting ahead?” he asked. Nicholas said it is critical that demonstration projects start be implemented.  

“What if we do a demonstration project on the East Side where we find a neighborhood or two and commit to bringing every child up to grade level, bringing every home up to code, and improving primary care access,” he said. Success in one neighborhood will demonstrate that it is possible to do it in others. 

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