Food Choice and Obesity in Black America: Creating a New Cultural Diet - New Online Presentation

Several months ago, I was invited to Mount Holyoke College (MASS) to take part in their annual lecture series. I participated with another colleague in their "Food and Culture Matters: Health Epidemics in African American Communities" symposium. In an earlier blog, I documented my activities at this outstanding event.

Recently, I received an announcement that my presentation associated with the event is now online and available for viewing. If you would like to view my presentation and the major issues that I highlighted during my 10 minute talk, here is the link:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/wcl/bailey_video.html

After your viewing, please share your comments and send them to: ebailey8@aol.com. I appreciate your feedback and look forward to your insightful, professional comments.

NEW BOOK - "The New Face of America" - COMPLETED AND SCHEDULED TO BE PUBLISHED - MARCH 2012

I am delighted, overjoyed, and relieved that my new book entitled, "The New Face of America: How the Emerging Multiracial, Multiethnic Majority is Changing the United States," is completed. I finished writing the manuscript on June 25th and it was another great journey of learning, researching, interviewing and sharing information about individuals who identify themselves as multiracial. Those who identify themselves as "multiracial" have finally been officially recognized again by our 2010 U.S. Census and the census data findings definitely show that multiracial populations have dramatically increased during the past decade. The increased numbers are not only surprising to demographers, scholars and researchers but also the general public!

In my new book, I share with you the values, beliefs, traditions, patterns and cultural history of multiracials in America. Unfortunately, their issues and lifestyles have been overlooked in our country for years, yet now is the time to correct our misconceptions and stereotypes about multiracials and truly appreciate how they are changing America now and particularly in the near future.

My new book is scheduled to be released in March 2012! Over the next several months, I will give you updates of the book's publicity and prepromotional activities. It will be published by the international publisher -- ABC-CLIO (Praeger Publishers) and I have been fortunate to publish other books with them.

To check out my publisher's early promotional book flyer, here is the link: http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=2147509507

After review, feel free to send me an email (baileye@ecu.edu) and let me know your thoughts and comments. Feel free also to pre-order my new book at ABC-CLIO publishers.

Enjoy Your Summer and Change is Coming!

Presentation on "Food and Culture" in African American Communities - Mount Holyoke College

On Monday, March 7th, I was a part of a panel discussion at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts for their Food Series 2010-2011 talking about my 2006 book "Food Choice and Obesity in Black America: Creating a New Cultural Diet." I joined Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson in this panel discussion. We discussed how food, diet, and culture can address health epidemics such as obesity and diabetes among African Americans. Our panel discussion occurred on Monday evening.

This event was organized in the following format. Dr. James Harold (Director & Organizer of the event) introduced the entire panel of experts: Cristina I. Huebner Torres (Moderator), Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson and myself. All of us gave 10 minute presentations of our research related to Food and Culture. Of course, during my presentation, I had to turn up the energy and present my talk the way that I normally present -- "High Energy and Direct." Then we sat down in front of the auditorium audience of students and fielded questions.

All of the questions were challenging and thought-provoking. It was fun answering their questions because it made me think and express new ways to highlight the significance of culture to our food preferences.

In addition to our panel discussion, Dr. Williams-Forson and I participated in Student Leadership Seminar entitled, "Cultural Intelligence and Resourceful Leadership in African American Communities" earlier in the day and this event was very engaging with a select number of students.

Overall, the entire two days that I spent traveling (driving), presenting and meeting all the staff, faculty and students associated with Mount Holyoke College was a very enjoyable, enlightening, relaxing and intellectually-stimulating event. This was the first time that I had the chance to visit this part of the country and I loved it! I truly appreciated the invitation and the pleasure to get to meet new students and professionals!

Presented at North Carolina State University for the Minority Interest Pre-Health Club

On Monday, February 28th, I was invited by North Carolina State University's Minority Interest Pre-Health Club to give a talk on my research on health disparities. The title of my presentation was, "How to Solve and Eliminate Health Disparities."

The actual invitation came from their president -- Mr. Johnathan Hilbert -- with assistance from Toni Thorpe, the African American Cultural Center, my talk was apart of the distinguishable 2011 Lawrence M. Clark Lecture series at NC State. In fact, the entire Minority Interest Pre-Health club organized an outstanding event which included a special ceremony at the beginning of the event, the presentation and then the dinner. In addition, I met the first president of the club -- Mr. Anthony Kulukulualani -- who established the club.

Overall, the event was outstanding and well-organized. I was quite impressed and appreciated all the extra effort from the organizers, the audience members and the faculty who attended the event during this rainy night. I commend their efforts, insight and future endeavors because I can tell that these young professionals have an outstanding career before them.

New Year 2011 -NEW RESEARCH PROJECT!!


It's a brand new year and as a Medical and Cultural Anthropologist, it's time for a new research project. One of my new research projects for the year involves learning about multiracial groups in the United States. Surprisingly with all the new data coming from our recent U.S. Census reporting, there is still very little information on the issues related to multiracial populations in the United States. This simply does not make sense! It is 2011 and our country know little about all the various multiracial groups in the U.S.. Why is this?

I am therefore beginning my own long-term research, book project to learn more about multiracial groups in America. The book project is entitled:

"The New Face of America: How the Emerging Multiracial, Multiethnic Majority is Changing the United States"

In fact, I have contacted a number of professional organizations whose members are multiracial to find out if they are willing to share information about their issues. So hopefully, if there are individuals who are willing to share their multiracial story with me, please feel free to contact me at: ebailey8@aol.com to receive a brief open-ended, qualitative questionnaire.

This is my first step into this very significant human rights issue!

Presentation at the National Medical Association Conference in Orlando, FL.

Well, I just returned back from the National Medical Association Conference in Orlando, Florida where I talked about the new program that I developed entitled, "Developing a Graduate Certificate Online Program in Ethnic and Rural Health Disparities." The audience of primarily physicians, public health researchers and health administrators asked several questions regarding the program and I enjoyed the dialogue with the audience. It was a long morning and afternoon session of experts across the country presenting their clinical and basic science studies to the audience.

Not only did I verbally presented the ERDH program to the NMA conference attendees, I also presented a poster presentation. Several of my colleagues in this session were pleased that we were able to get the extra time to set-up our posters during the same day of our oral presentation.

Overall, the National Medical Association conference is a superb national conference which allows primarily physicians/medical professionals of color to come together and discuss their clinical practices and research. I have attended the NMA conference before and it gets bigger and bigger each year. Yet it does appear that the NMA is attempting to include more professionals from other disciplines other than medicine to become a part of their conference and association. I think that it's time to do it in a major way.

During the opening ceremony, the NMA also honored a number of distinguised physicians from across the country including Dr. Virginia Caine, Dr. Wilbert Jordan, Dr. Michael LeNoir, Dr. John C. Nelson, Dr. Griffin Rodgers, and the new Surgeon General Dr. Regina M. Benjamin. In addition, the First Lady Michelle Obama received a distinguished Scroll of Merit Award.

Finally, I saw a few of my former colleagues from NIH and met new medical professionals in which we had engaging conversations about the new Health Care Reform policy. All in all, Orlando, Florida was an excellent city to host the 2010 National Medical Association Convention and Scientific Assembly.

Now I know that my new Ethnic and Rural Health Disparities (ERHD)Graduate Certificate Online Program and my medical anthropologist's approach to medical care can be the nation's leader in online training the next generation of medical and public health professionals!

CDC Medical College and Universities Roundtable Meeting - Atlanta, GA

A few days ago, I was fortunate to participate in the CDC Medical College and Universities Roundtable Meeting. Asked by the Dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, I represented our university during this two-day meeting to share ideals on how to increase minority students in the School of Medicine and public health. Representatives from a wide variety of universities and colleges were represented at this meeting which featured Director Thomas Frieden of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and Dr. John E. Maupin - President of Morehouse School of Medicine giving the keynote speeches during day two.

Yet this Roundtable meeting was started at the request of Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. The meeting purpose and objectives were:

• Identify opportunities related to health disparities elimination, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and specific areas for ongoing collaboration and engagement.


• Discuss and determine how best to act on evidence indicating that increasing diversity in the workforce is associated with improvements in key measures of health disparities, identify career development and training opportunities in academic settings and at CDC; and


• Determine ways to increase the current representation of minority professionals in the field of public health and how participating institutions can train students in population health and public health.

Interestingly, once I arrived at the meeting at CDC's new complex, I met a former colleague -- Dr. Karen Bouye who I worked with when I was a PostDoctoral Fellow at CDC from 1993-1995. Then I was attending Emory University and working for CDC in the Office of Minority Health in order to complete my requirement for the Postdoctoral Fellowship in HIV/AIDs. It was a joy to catch up with her and several other colleagues.

The meeting was filled with all types of excellent commentary, suggestions and promotions of what each representative's university is already doing. For example, I mentioned that I had developed a completely unique new Graduate Online Certificate Program entitled the "Ethnic and Rural Health Disparities (ERHD)" (http://blogs.aos.ecu.edu/cer) at East Carolina University beginning in the fall 2010. We need to use our online technology to reach out to various urban and rural communities so that communities of color can have the access and opportunity to obtain additional training and expertise in public health. That's what our new ERHD program will accomplish.

For continual dialogue and discussion regarding the CDC Medical College and Universities Roundtable, you can go to their blog at: http://blogs.cdc.gov/mcuroundtable/

Finally, it felt good returning to CDC and see so many changes at this federal institution and the new buildings being constructed. It seemed like just a few years ago when I brought my family here to relocate and go through the intense training at CDC and Emory University. We truly had an enjoyable time living and working in Atlanta. We met a lot of great and phenomenal people then and we cherrish that time. Interestingly, my older brother lives in Atlanta as well. It was particularly nice to see him again. Time flies by so fast yet still some things stay the same.

Check out the photo: Dr. Thomas Frieden, Dr. John Maupin, Dr. Winston Price, Dr. Janet Collins and Dr. Walter Williams.