2023 Loyola Chicago Health Equity Quest

Loyola University Chicago’s Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health and MATTER invite you to join us for a one-day summit convening national thought leaders and innovators who are disrupting healthcare delivery through the lens of health equity and sustainability.

The U.S. healthcare system creates a massive amount of national and global waste and pollution, having a direct effect on the pace and severity of climate change. And as climate change worsens—from intolerable heat to more frequent and extreme floods, wildfires, droughts and other disasters—it creates new and exacerbates existing health inequities, preventing individuals and communities from achieving their highest levels of health.

Join health systems, faculty and students, community organizations, patient groups, government entities, policymakers, entrepreneurs and others to collaborate on how we can make the U.S. healthcare system more sustainable and address health inequities caused by rapid climate change.

The summit will feature a keynote address from Dr. Jalonne White-Newsome, senior director for environmental justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality

Agenda (all times in CT):

Breakfast and lunch will be provided. More details on the programming coming soon.

8:30–9:00 a.m. | Breakfast

9:00 a.m. | Welcome

9:30 a.m. | Keynote

10:45 a.m. | Break

11:00 a.m. | Panel: Building resilient communities

12:15 p.m. | Lunch

1:15 p.m. | Panel: Reducing health inequities caused by climate change

2:30 p.m. | Break

2:45 p.m. | Panel: Reducing healthcare’s carbon footprint

4:00 p.m. | Closing comments

4:15 p.m. | Networking reception

5:30 p.m. | Event concludes

Learn more about last year’s Health Equity Quest. 

ABOUT THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Dr. Jalonne White-Newsome

Senior Director for Environmental Justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality

Dr. Jalonne L. White-Newsome joined the Biden-Harris Administration in June 2022 as the senior director for environmental justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Under her leadership, the environmental justice team is working to deliver on President Biden’s ambitious environmental justice agenda, including implementing the recently signed Environmental Justice Executive Order, releasing the first-ever Environmental Justice Scorecard, advancing the Justice40 Initiative and launching the White House Campaign for Environmental Justice.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, Dr. White-Newsome has tackled environmental challenges from a wide range of positions and perspectives, including in the grassroots environmental justice movement, environmental philanthropy, state government, private industry and academia. Before joining the White House, Dr. White-Newsome founded and led Empowering a Green Environment and Economy, LLC (EGE2), a strategic consulting firm that focused on transforming communities by using people-centered solutions to combat climate change, improve public health, pursue environmental justice and advance racial equity. She also served as the first director of federal policy for WE ACT for Environmental Justice, managing their federal policy office in Washington, D.C. Dr. White-Newsome’s early environmental justice advocacy and research has focused on air pollution, climate-driven extreme heat and flooding and improving the health of low-income communities of color. 

Dr. White-Newsome earned a PhD in environmental health sciences from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, a master’s degree in environmental engineering from Southern Methodist University, a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University and a certificate in diversity and inclusion from Cornell University. She is a proud wife and mother of her daughters.

About Loyola University Chicago Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health

Loyola University Chicago launched the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health in Fall 2019 to educate the health entrepreneurs of the future and impact health care accessibility and equity nationally. The Parkinson School offers 19 degree programs and three certificate and internship programs in four areas of study: Public Health Sciences, Healthcare Administration, Health Informatics and Data Science, and Applied Health Sciences. The School builds on the foundations of Loyola’s nationally recognized Stritch School of Medicine and its Biomedical Programs, Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing, and Loyola’s partnership with Trinity Health (known in the Chicago area as Loyola Medicine). To learn more about the Parkinson School, visit LUC.edu/Parkinson or follow us on Twitter via @LoyolaParkinson or Instagram via @luc.parkinson.

About MATTER

At MATTER, we believe collaboration is the best way to improve healthcare. The MATTER collaborative includes more than 800 current and alumni startups from around the world, working together with dozens of hospitals and health systems, universities and industry-leading companies to build the future of healthcare. Together we are accelerating innovation, advancing care and improving lives. For more information, visit matter.health and follow @MATTERhealth.