Puentes Consortium at Rice to discuss public health in the US-Mexico border region

A panel of scholars and officials will examine the challenges and successes of public health efforts in the U.S.-Mexico border region as part of the fourth annual Puentes Consortium Symposium being held at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy Nov. 21.

The panelists are: Peter Hotez, fellow in disease and poverty at the Baker Institute and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine; Iman Hakim, dean of the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health at the University of Arizona; and Jesus Zacarias Villarreal, secretary of health for the state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

The event, “Responding to Shared Problems: Public Health in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region,” will be from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in Baker Hall’s Kelly International Conference Facility.

The Puentes Consortium comprises five universities from Mexico and the United States and provides a distinctive voice for the binational community of scholars who carry out multidisciplinary research on issues of importance to relations between Mexico and the U.S. and to the well-being of their citizens.

The consortium focuses its resources on a different topic annually and carries out research with an orientation toward public policy. Each year the research culminates in the Puentes Consortium Symposium, where the findings are discussed and deliberated upon by the member institutions and their leadership teams.

Participating universities include Monterrey Tec, the University of Monterrey and the University of the Americas in Puebla, all in Mexico, and the University of Arizona and Rice University in the U.S.

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required at http://bakerinstitute.org/events/register/1549/?submit=Register.