Shining a Light on Disparities: Understanding the Role of Health Equity in Infection Prevention and Control

Advancing health equity and eliminating health disparities have been and continue to be critical factors facing healthcare today. Healthy People 2020 defines health equity as "the attainment of the highest level of health for all people." According to Healthy People 2020, "Achieving health equity requires valuing everyone equally with focused and ongoing societal efforts to address avoidable inequalities, historical and contemporary injustices, and the elimination of health and health care disparities." Healthy People 2020 defines health disparities as "a particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social, economic, and/or environmental disadvantage."

Join experts from ECRI and Innovative Infection Prevention as they discuss the impact of health equity and health disparities on infection prevention and control efforts in a variety of healthcare practice settings.

Learning Objectives:

During this webinar, we will discuss:

• The scope of nontraditional risk factors for infections
• Health equity and how it relates to infection prevention and control
• The relationship between healthcare-associated infections and race, gender, and social determinants of health

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Speakers

Hillary Hei, MPH, CIC, LSSGB, HEM

Senior Infection Preventionist, ECRI
Prior to joining ECRI in 2020, Hillary honed her infection control career in the pediatric world for five years. She became certified in Infection Control in 2017 and also became a certified Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt in 2019. She is a member of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) and serves on the national Research Committee as the liaison for the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC).

Janet Haas, PhD, RN, CIC, FSHEA, FAPIC

Principal Consulting Epidemiologist, Innovative Infection Prevention
Janet Haas is the CEO of Innovative Infection Prevention, a consulting firm focused on infection prevention in healthcare, public health, and private industry. She also focuses on professional mentoring for new infection preventionists and infection prevention leaders. Dr. Haas has worked in infection prevention for over 25 years and has led departments in major academic medical centers. She earned a PhD in Nursing from Columbia University and an MS in Epidemiology from the State University of New York at Albany. Dr. Haas is widely published and is an international speaker. She is an associate editor of the American Journal of Infection Control, a past president (2018) of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC), and the 2022 APIC Carole DeMille lifetime achievement award winner.