Early Childhood Health Focus of UA’s Rural Health Conference

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Early childhood health is the topic of the 15^th Annual Rural Health Conference hosted by The University of Alabama’s College of Community Health Sciences and its Institute for Rural Health Research.

The conference, “Healthy Beginnings, Healthy Communities: The Early Childhood Experience,” will be held Tuesday, April 29, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Bryant Conference Center on UA’s campus.

The conference will feature two keynote speakers: Dr. Bernard Guyer, the Zanvyl Kreiger Professor of Children’s Health, emeritus, in the department of population, family and reproductive health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Allison de la Torre,  executive director of the Alabama School Readiness Alliance.

Morning and afternoon breakout sessions on issues related to the conference topic will also be offered. Some of these include an examination of the impact of the State Offices of Minority Health; a discussion of the Tuscaloosa Pre-K Initiative, which is an early childhood health promotion campaign; signs of typical development and recommendations for a healthy lifestyle of young children; and Alabama Quality STARS, which focuses on quality and improvement in child care and early childhood education.

Guyer is a graduate of Antioch College and the University of Rochester Medical School and trained in pediatrics and preventive medicine at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University. Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Guyer was an associate professor of maternal and child health at Harvard School of Public Health. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and has chaired its board on children, youth and families, as well as committees on immunization policies and the poison control system. He has also chaired the Maryland Commission on Infant Mortality.

Guyer’s areas of research include maternal and child health, low birth weight and infant mortality, child development, pediatric care, immunization, child health policy and urban health. He was the principal investigator of the National Evaluation of the Health Steps for Young Children Program and is the author of more than 300 published papers.

de la Torre works to promote high-quality, voluntary pre-kindergarten as a top priority in Alabama. She has designed and implemented state-based pre-k policy initiatives, and he is connected to a national network of education leaders, children’s advocates, funders and experts.

Prior to joining the Alabama School Readiness Alliance, de la Torre served as state policy associate for Pre-K Now, a campaign of the Pew Center on the States, where she managed a $2.5 million annual grant-making portfolio to advance pre-k policy in more than 15 states across the country, including Alabama. As a result of Pre-K Now’s efforts over the past decade, state funding for pre-k more than doubled nationwide to $5.1 billion in fiscal year 2012; pre-k access increased from just 700,000 children in 2001 to more than one million today; dozens of states improved the quality of their pre-k programs; and six states and Washington, D.C., opened their programs to all 4-year-olds, bringing the total number of pre-k-for-all states to nine plus Washington, D.C.

de la Torre has also served as legislative assistant to Oregon state Sen. Vicki L. Walker, then-chair of the Senate Education and General Government Committee. Prior to her work for Walker, she worked at the Children’s Institute, a leading pre-k advocacy organization in Oregon. de la Torre began her career as a pre-k assistant at La Mesa First United Methodist Church in her home town of San Diego.

The annual Rural Health Conference is attended by health-care providers, researchers, community leaders, government officials, policymakers and representatives of faith-based organizations who hear from prominent speakers in the field and share information and knowledge about rural health issues. The registration fee for this year’s conference is $100 per person and $25 for students; it includes breakfast and lunch. Continuing Education Units will be offered.  After April 22, the registration fee is $125 per person and $30 for students.

For more information and to register online, visit the conference website at http://rhc.ua.edu or contact the Institute for Rural Health Research at 205/348-0025.

The Institute for Rural Health Research was established in 2001 and conducts research to improve health in rural Alabama. The goal is to produce research that is useful to communities, health care providers and policymakers as they work to improve the availability, accessibility and quality of health care in rural areas. The Institute also serves as a resource for community organizations, researchers and individuals working to improve the health of rural communities in Alabama.