Professors to Participate in National Institutes of Health Virtual Workshop

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health is hosting a two-day virtual workshop December 3-4, 2024 to identify and discuss critical challenges, innovations, research gaps, and future opportunities to promote cardiovascular health through a life course approach to physical activity research.

UNC Charlotte professors Daheia Barr-Anderson, Ph.D., Dean W. Colvard Distinguished Professor in the Department of Applied Physiology, Health, and Clinical Sciences and Candace Brown, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Gerontology in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Health are scheduled speakers for the workshop “A Life Course Approach to Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health Research: Critical Challenges, Innovations, and Opportunities.”

“The goal of the workshop is to generate ideas and consider research priorities related to physical activity,” said Barr-Anderson, who is also co-chairing the workshop. “Given recent technological advances, behavior changes, and societal issues, we need to determine which areas require our continued focus.” 

Scheduled to speak during the workshop are 28 multidisciplinary investigators, clinicians, and researchers from 20 organizations and institutions, including the Centers for Disease Control, Kaiser Permanente, Vanderbilt University, Duke University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Morehouse School of Medicine.

Barr-Anderson will address health equity and social determinants of health and Brown will discuss physical activity and the aging adult.

The main objectives of the workshop are to:

• Explore recent breakthroughs in physical activity research that expand and integrate the concept of physical activity from pregnancy through early life and adolescence to all stages of adulthood
• Examine physical activity research through the lens of cultural and underrepresented groups to highlight how health equity must remain a high priority
• Account for current challenges and innovative strategies to identify research opportunities that will continue to propel the field forward

Registration by November 29 is required to attend the free virtual workshop.