The third annual Latino Health Equity Conference at California State University, Long Beach will take place on April 10, 2014. This conference aims to raise awareness and engage CSULB’s academic and larger community in health equity research focused on Latinos – our nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority population.

The Latino Health Equity conference is hosted by the NCLR/CSULB Center for Latino Community Health, Evaluation, and Leadership Training (the Center), through the Hispanic Health Opportunity Learning Alliance (H2OLA) Project. The Center provides Latino undergraduate and graduate students with academic training, mentoring, and career development opportunities designed to motivate and prepare them for careers in health equity and research. H2OLA welcomes students from the colleges of Health & Human Services and Natural Sciences & Mathematics; its aim is to widen the pool of minority applicants applying for advanced degrees that will ultimately impact health-equity opportunities in a positive manner for the most underserved.

This year’s conference theme is Nuestra Cultura es Nuestra Riqueza: Integrating Cultural Capital into Latino Health Research. This is the third in a series of annual conferences that will be hosted by H2OLA over the next several years. Each conference brings together an array of national researchers and leaders with multiple perspectives on the issues that most impact Latino health.

H2OLA was developed by the Center in response to the critical educational and professional deficit among underrepresented populations. This conference and other H2OLA activities are possible thanks to funding from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Science Education Initiative: Grant # 5R25MD006851.