The USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health, USC Law & Global Health Collaboration and USC Keck School of Medicine Center for Gender Equity in Medicine and Science invite you to join us for “Addressing the Long-Term Social and Economic Impacts of Dobbs: A View from Inside USC” on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 4–5 p.m. PST.

This one-hour virtual event brings together a multidisciplinary panel of faculty from across USC to discuss the broad social and economic implications of the US Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Informed by the outcomes of the midterm elections in which abortion is a central issue, USC experts in the fields of law, medicine, social work, sociology and global health will provide insight into the current political landscape and the potential long-term ramifications for marginalized and vulnerable communities. This forward-looking conversation will draw on the wide expertise of the panelists to consider the concept of solidarity and explore strategies for research and advocacy in this complicated time.

The dialogue will be moderated by Professor Sofia Gruskin, Director, USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health.

Speakers:

Dr. Manuel Pastor is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity and Director of the Equity Research Institute at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Pastor’s research has generally focused on issues of the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities — and the social movements seeking to change those realities. Dr. Pastor was the founding director of the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has received fellowships from the Danforth, Guggenheim and Kellogg foundations, and grants from the Irvine Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the California Environmental Protection Agency, and many others. Dr. Pastor speaks frequently on issues of demographic change, economic inequality and community empowerment, and has contributed opinion pieces to such outlets including the Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post. Pastor holds an economics PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is the inaugural holder of the Turpanjian Chair in Civil Society and Social Change at USC.

Dr. Parveen Parmar is the Director of Global Emergency Medicine and Director of the Center for Gender Equity in Medicine and Science at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, where she is an Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine. Dr. Parmar’s research has focused on the study of health and human rights violations in refugees and internally displaced populations. Dr. Parmar has supported health care for refugees and other vulnerable persons globally in multiple settings on issues such as emergency care delivery, maternal and child health, gender-based violence, and primary care provision. She has also published on health and deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention. Dr. Parmar is a graduate of Stanford University; completed an MPH from Harvard University; received her medical degree from Northwestern University; and completed her emergency medicine residency and served as chief resident at the University of California, Los Angeles/Olive View UCLA Emergency Medicine Residency Program.

Daria Roithmayr is the Richard L. and Antoinette S. Kirtland Professor of Law at the USC Gould School of Law, where she teaches and writes about persistent structural racism in labor, housing, political participation, wealth and education. Her book, “Reproducing Racism: How Everyday Choices Lock In White Advantage,” explores the self-reinforcing dynamics of persistent racial inequality. Her work is heavily interdisciplinary, drawing from economics, sociology, political theory, history and complex systems theory. She is currently at work on a new book, “Racism Pays,” which explores the way that recent innovations in the digital economy have relied on racial exploitation to get off the ground. Before joining USC Gould, Roithmayr taught for nine years at the University of Illinois College of Law. She has also been a visiting researcher at Harvard University and a visiting law professor at the University of Michigan, Georgetown, and Yale. Roithmayr received her BS from UCLA, and her JD, magna cum laude, from the Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a member of Order of the Coif and served as an editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. She clerked for The Honorable Marvin J. Garbis, judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

John R. Blosnich is an assistant professor and director of the Center for LGBTQ+ Health Equity at the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. His primary area of expertise is disparities in suicide risk and prevention among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, with a specific emphasis on social determinants of health. Prior to joining the faculty at USC, Dr. Blosnich spent nine years working with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where he led foundational research about transgender veterans’ health and health care utilization, with a specific focus on suicide risk, mortality and social determinants of health. He garnered the VA’s first research award focused on transgender veterans and served on several national VA committees charged with developing guidance and clinical education and training about LGBT veterans receiving health care through the VA. In addition to VA-supported research, he has conducted LGBT-focused research supported by competitive awards from foundations and the National Institutes of Health. Over the last five years, he has worked on efforts to improve LGBT health equity research in the US by addressing the lack of sexual orientation and gender identity data in mortality surveillance.