Over the past decade, The Women’s Health Awareness (WHA) Community Engagement Program has organized an annual conference for women living in Durham, North Carolina, and the surrounding areas. This FREE event provides health and environmental health education, screenings, advocacy, and services to attending participants. Issues covered in the conference often change annually and are typically informed by participants’ expressed interests and evolving healthcare issues impacting women across the country. For example, the 2023 conference examined critical topics related to Black maternal mortality, domestic violence, mental health, chronic disease, and environmental justice.

Each year, health experts from around the country deliver presentations on a range of current health issues facing women. For example, the April 2023 conference featured the “father of environmental justice,” Dr. Robert Bullard, the White House Council’s Senior Director of Environmental Justice, Dr. Jalonne White-Newsome, and the creator of the WUNC award-winning Great Grief podcast, Nnenna Freelon.

Conference Goals:

• Inform and empower women to take responsibility for their health and well-being.
• Encourage women to understand and make informed decisions about their health options.
• Share culturally appropriate community health services, resources, healthy living support and products that promote healthy behaviors and health equity.
• Connect women to community health resources and provide free health screenings.
• Empower women with health advocacy tools and support to build community-level activism and resiliency.

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