UND to host Sec. of Agriculture Tom Vilsack at National Rural Health Journalism Workshop
The University of North Dakota (UND) will be the host for the Association of Health Care Journalist’s virtual Rural Health Journalism Workshop, June 21-23. This workshop is sponsored by the UND Leaders in Action Rural Health and Communities Grand Challenge.
The event’s featured speaker is U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, head of the U.S Department of Agriculture.
“A significantly greater proportion of North Dakota residents live and work in rural areas than do the residents of the majority of U.S. states,” said Dr. Shawnda Schroeder, associate director of research and evaluation for the Center for Rural Health at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences. “UND also serves as our State Office of Rural Health and we host the Center for Rural Health, with more than four dozen dedicated team members focused on striving for rural health equity. This is a great opportunity to share our larger national programs focused on rural health equity with the journalists who most commonly report this information.”
The goal of UND’s Rural Health and Communities Grand Challenge is to help rural communities solve their unique health and social problems. This is one of five Grand Challenges, which are geared toward generating opportunity by helping diversify North Dakota’s economy and addressing social issues.
The easy-access, three-day workshop will bring journalists together with healthcare and policy experts who focus on the medical needs of people in rural areas and how they differ from those living in urban settings. People living in rural communities can play a large role in setting policy and promoting legislation in many states and across the country.
The workshop is hosted by UND. Other sponsors include The Commonwealth Fund, The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
