Each of these annually recurring forums builds on Loyola University Chicago’s commitment to be a beacon for real-world solutions to health equity issues in Chicago and to ensure access to good health for all. 

Health Equity Quest: Sparking innovation with a focus on equity

Matter Chicago, a health care startup incubator, partners with a Parkinson initiative called the Center for Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship to jumpstart small businesses and brainstorm new ideas aimed at closing long-standing health inequities.

Their partnership comes to life through an annual event called the Loyola Chicago Health Equity Quest, which each year focuses on a topic related to the changing needs in society. In its first three years, the event focused on the intersection of health equity and emerging infectious diseases (2021), the intersection of health and rapid climate change (2022), and justice within health care systems and the natural environment (2023).

The event has also featured a “Shark Tank”-style pitching contest before not just academics and students, but also venture capitalists, philanthropists, and others who support innovation and entrepreneurship. The 2022 winner, Parcel Health, took home $35,000 to further develop sustainable packaging for health care products and medication.

“This is an agenda-setting conversation, bringing together people who don’t normally come together,” Morrato says. “It has the power to spark innovations that can make people’s lives better – and that’s because it’s bringing together people who have varied capacities, from expertise in the health sciences and public health, to an understanding of developing and bringing a product to market, to an ability to assemble the funding and financing necessary to make that all happen. As the old saying goes: Success never happens alone.”

Loyola Stands Against Gun Violence: Seeing beyond established ways of thinking

Hosted for the last four years, the annual Loyola Stands Against Gun Violence summit brings together students, faculty, and community leaders with varied expertise and life experience to discuss ways to reduce violence in the Chicago area.

“Gun violence is a national public health crisis that greatly affects our Chicagoland community,” Morrato says. “Our event seeks to sustain focus on this critical problem by convening people from many different perspectives and walks of life who know the data, the issues, and the stories – they’re there to talk about real solutions.”

Some of those voices include community representatives who have been directly impacted by gun violence. Others include keynote speakers from notable national groups such as March Fourth, Brady United, and Moms Demand Action – all nonprofits seeking policy solutions to gun violence. Still others include local government officials from the Chicago area, leaders from other health care institutions in Chicago, and criminal justice reformers from throughout the country.

All these groups and more joined representatives from across Loyola's interdisciplinary schools and programs – not just Parkinson, but also the University’s medical and law schools, the Institute for Translational Medicine, and the Health Sciences Ministry.

"There’s a reason why people say things like ‘the epidemic of gun violence in America’ — that’s because it actually is a societal public health epidemic,” Morrato says. “At Parkinson, one of the things that makes us unique is our focus on being community-centered and human-centered — we are here to serve others. We bring together both conventional and unconventional voices and emerging disciplines to have real conversations that transcend any one area of expertise. We believe that’s what will ultimately lead to better health outcomes for all.”

Data Science for Social Thinkers Salon: Advancing health data science through a humanistic lens

Underlying all health interventions and programs are data sets, but at the annual Data Science for Social Thinkers Salon, the focus is on the human side of data.

“At a moment when artificial intelligence is making it possible to analyze massive data sets in moments, these human-centered conversations are increasingly relevant,” Morrato says. “Loyola is known for its expertise in bioethics, and that is what we seek to advance. It’s about the ethics of data inclusion and how we can center the community’s voice in big data.”

The data salon integrates both community voices, as well as unconventional voices, into a self-reflective conversation about health and data. For example, last year the event brought in artists to help participants with the humanistic understanding and expression of health data – “a unique lens,” according to Morrato.

At the salon — organized by a Parkinson initiative called the Center for Health Outcomes and Informatics Research, which strives to create a data-driven culture to improve health outcomes and health equity — speakers consider which people are included in their data sets and, just as critically, who isn’t. They think through how to ethically collect and use data. Each of these annually recurring forums builds on Loyola University Chicago’s commitment to be a beacon for real-world solutions to health equity issues in Chicago and to ensure access to good health for all.