It was exciting to plan an in-person event this year for the ARCS Annual Membership meeting and luncheon. The meeting was held on May 4, 2022, in conjunction with the Board Meeting at the beautiful Piedmont Driving Club (PDC) in the Alexandria Room.  A special thank you to ARCS member, Missy McClatchey, for securing PDC for the occasion. The schedule for the event was as follows: guests checked in at 10:15 am; general meeting began at 10:30 am; luncheon at 11:30 am, and speaker/Q&A at 11:45 am.  The meeting concluded and adjourned around 12:30 pm.

Leslie Petter, ARCS Atlanta President, presided over the meeting and thanked the entire membership for their dedication, persistence, and generosity during the two years of the pandemic.  She acknowledged the role technology played in allowing our work to continue unabated and thanked the membership for the effort it took to keep up with the fast-moving advances.  At the end of the meeting, with warm congratulations, Leslie passed the gavel to incoming president Sara Jean Burke and her newly elected Board.

Over lunch, Suzy Wasserman, our Speakers Chair, introduced the speaker, Dr. Shivani Patel.  ARCS member Kathryn Graves at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University heartily recommended this brilliant and innovative speaker for our May meeting. Dr. Patel is a social epidemiologist and Assistant Professor in the Hubert Department of Global Health.

Dr. Patel opened her talk by focusing on how COVID-19 has swept across the entire country but its burden has not been spread equally.  Some communities had higher infection rates, hospitalizations, and deaths. Dr. Patel leads the team of researchers at Emory University who have developed the COVID-19 Health Equity Dashboard to shine a light on the virus’ differential impact. She went on to say that “Our goal was to go beyond describing COVID-19 incidence in communities. We wanted to fill in the gaps about the interplay between the health outcomes and the underlying social determinants and other vulnerabilities, such as diabetes and obesity.”

Dr. Patel’s current research is in understanding and addressing disparities in cardio-metabolic disease morbidity and mortality in the United States, as well as her role in training and mentoring scientists and public health practitioners of diverse backgrounds.

The 2022 Annual Membership meeting was well attended with approximately 52 members in attendance and 1 guest.

Leslie Petter and Sara Jean Burke