Public health groups/organizations working to advance health of African Americans and other minorities

• Minority Student Caucus at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health (http://go.unc.edu/msc - historical information is available at www.epidemiolog.net/mhp/sph/caucus/). The Caucus was founded in 1971 and leads the annual Minority Health Conference, which it launched in 1977. Chandra Ford (who now directs the Center for the Study of Racism … at UCLA) was active in the UNC Caucus for years. Here’s a brief video clip of Chandra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORUXo3mUQn8  She is shown with Bill Jenkins, with whom I co-taught the seminar course in which this conversation/interview took place. Bill is the founder of SAAPHI (see below). Chandra also presented the William T. Small, Jr. Keynote Lecture for the 38^th Annual Minority Health Conference, in 2017: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qegsU2R-tDk
   
• Society for the Analysis of African American Health Issues (SAAPHI, www.saaphi.org) – founded in 1991 to put health disparities and racism on the public health agenda, SAAPHI has been an influential organization working largely within the American Public Health Association (APHA). SAAPHI has an annual conference on the Saturday before APHA.  The virtual library folder on SAAPHI (https://sakai.unc.edu/x/Y5nc91) has programs from some of the conferences. 
   
• Two other African American-oriented professional groups are the Black Caucus of Health Workers (BCHW), which in 2018 celebrated its 50^th anniversary as a caucus within APHA, and Black Ladies in Public Health (bliph.org plus an active Facebook page). BCHW and SAAPHI work together, and both BCHW and BLIPH co-sponsored the 2018 SAAPHI conference. Links to both organizations and some information about them are at https://sakai.unc.edu/x/IbFRg7   The Minority Health Institute, Inc., dedicated to the elimination of racial and ethnic disparities in medicine, the medical workforce, clinical research, health and healthcare, was founded by Richard Allen Williams, MD in 1987.
   
• American College of Epidemiology Minority Affairs Committee (ACEMAC) was founded in 1991 in Atlanta, the same week that SAAPHI was founded. Bill Jenkins was a founding member of both (for more about Bill, see http://go.unc.edu/BillJenkins.)  The ACEMAC has a webpage on the American College of Epidemiology website (https://www.acepidemiology.org/minority-affairs) though it’s often not up to date and doesn’t preserve much history. The virtual library folder for the ACEMAC is at https://sakai.unc.edu/x/crQMmA  Since early in the 21st century, the MAC has held a free workshop on the Saturday before the College’s annual scientific meeting.