Dr. Gail Christopher selected to participate in TEDMED Great Challenges Series

Dr. Gail Christopher, vice president-program strategy for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, was selected to participate in the TEDMED Great Challenges Program, a series of high-profile online discussions around 20 complex challenges in health and medicine.

During the 2012 TEDMED gathering in Washington, D.C. – and simultaneously, at hundreds of auditoriums nationwide – the TEDMED community learned about and voted for the “20 Great Challenges of Health and Medicine.” The Great Challenges are intended to generate thoughtful national dialogue; Dr. Christopher, along with four others, will be addressing the Great Challenge of the “Impact of Poverty on Health.”

“I’m very pleased to participate in the TEDMED Great Challenges Program,” says Dr. Christopher. “In the United States, more than half of all children of color face the burden of ‘double jeopardy’ of both living in poverty and in low-income neighborhoods. Many also carry the associated lifetime burden of health inequities—with higher rates of infant mortality, childhood obesity, diabetes and toxic stress. For a child to thrive, we must address the entrenched patterns of residential racial segregation and resource distribution.”

In the coming weeks, Dr. Christopher will answer 10 crowd-sourced questions about the impact of poverty on health. Conversations will take place on TEDMED.com  and during a series of live Twitter Q&A session about each challenge. Anyone can participate by posting comments and follow-up questions, encouraging real-time, multi-disciplinary dialogue with members of the TEDMED community.

Other participants in this Great Challenges Program include Rebecca Onie, Health Leads; Gary Slutkin, CureViolence; Christine Simiriglia, Pathways to Housing; Robert Atkins, Rutgers; and Sandeep Kishore, Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network.

For more information, please visit: www.tedmed.com.