McGhee to keynote APHA 2021’s opening session: Register by Aug. 19 to save on Denver, online Annual Meeting
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* Michele Late

![Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/nathealth/51/6/3.2/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/51/6/3.2/F1)

Annual Meeting attendees pass by the Denver Convention Center during a walking event at the 2016 meeting. APHA’s 2021 Annual Meeting and Expo will be held in Denver in October.

Photo by Michele Late

In 2016, political commentator Heather McGhee, JD, was a guest on C-SPAN when she received an unusual call from a listener. Gary, a North Carolina man, told her “I’m a white male, and I’m prejudiced,” and asked how he could change.

McGhee, who will keynote APHA’s 2021 Annual Meeting and Expo this fall, thanked the man for his honesty and offered advice. The moment went viral, generating news coverage around the world.

As Gary and McGhee stayed in touch and became friends, she came to a realization, she said during her 2020 Ted Talk. The anxiety and isolation Gary experienced from his prejudice harmed him, not just the people he was afraid of. McGhee spent the next few years researching the effects that prejudice has on the bearer. In February, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” McGhee’s book exploring the shared destructive harms of racism, was published.

“My conclusion? Racism leads to bad policymaking,” McGhee said during her Ted Talk. “It’s making our economy worse. And not just in ways that disadvantage people of color. Racism is bad for white people too.”

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[Figure2](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/51/6/3.2/F2)

McGhee

McGhee will share insights from her research, career and book during the opening session of APHA 2021, which will be held in Denver and online in October. She is one of the many high-profile speakers who will be sharing perspectives and science around the four-day meeting’s theme of “Creating the Healthiest Nation: Strengthening Social Connectedness.”

“As the nation and world emerges from the separation of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health’s role will be crucially important,” APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, told *The Nation’s Health*. “How we come back together in the wake of this crisis will influence health for decades, if not longer.”

Featured sessions at the meeting will build on the theme, focusing on community cohesion after civil unrest, cultural connectedness, the state of public health, the COVID-19 pandemic, health misinformation on social media and more. Former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, MD, PhD, will keynote the meeting’s closing session, which will examine health equity and serve as a kickoff to APHA’s 150th anniversary celebration.

Other confirmed speakers include Demetre Daskalakis, PhD, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention; Edward Garcia, MHSPH, co-director of the Coalition to End Social Isolation and Loneliness; Nadine Gracia, MD, MSCE, president and CEO, Trust for America’s Health; Garth Graham, MD, MPH, director and global head of health care and public health for Google and YouTube; Lisa Macon Harrison, MPH, incoming president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials; Annelle Primm, MD, MPH, board member of the Black Mental Health Alliance and senior medical director of the Steve Fund; and Nirav Shah, MD, JD, president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Organizations.

APHA 2021 attendees will be able to be part of the meeting in-person in Denver or virtually from wherever they are.

The opening session will officially kick off the meeting at 11 a.m. MDT on Sunday, Oct. 24. Pre-Annual Meeting activities, such as business meetings, poster sessions, on-demand content and Learning Institutes, will begin Oct. 18.

Registration and housing are now open for the meeting. Participants who sign up by the Aug. 19 early-bird deadline can save up to $119. For information on meeting scholarships, visit [bit.ly/aphascholars](http://bit.ly/aphascholars).

For more information and to register for the Annual Meeting, visit [www.apha.org/annual-meeting](http://www.apha.org/annual-meeting).

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[Figure3](http://www.thenationshealth.org/content/51/6/3.2/F3)

*   Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association