The Summer School “Health Communication & Health Inequalities Across the Health Professions in Greece and the U.S.A” has opened its gates on Monday 30th of May 2022 at the premises of the Wooden Amphitheater of the School of Health Sciences (SHS) at HMU.
The Summer School is an important collaboration between the Department of Social Work / School of Health Sciences and the Department of Business Administration & Tourism / School of Management and Economic Sciences of the Hellenic Mediterranean University as well as the School of Communication and Information and the School of Health Sciences of the renowned Rutgers American University .
Of the Greek side, the coordinators of this initiative are HMU nternational Relations Office, Prof. Clio Koutra (Department of Social Work) and Prof. Giorgos Kritsotakis, (Department of Business Administration & Tourism) while of the American side, coordinators are Prof. Riva Touger-Decker (School of Health Sciences) and Prof. Matthew Matsaganis (School of Communication and Information). The Summer School is sponsorshiped by the Region of Crete.
The Summer School has started online for both institutions on 16th of May 2022 while in the next two weeks until the 10th of June 2022 it will continue in person in Greece at HMU campus at Heraklion. At the same time three visits are scheduled: to the Center for Minor Migrants at Anogia, to the Elderly Center of Malevizi and to the Gypsy Camp at Alikarnassos.
The aim of the project is to investigate the factors that lead to inequalities in the access to health services and to health-pharmaceutical care (inequalities that are based on social factors). These inequalities affect mainly women, people from low socio-economic status, ethnic and racial minorities, migrants, refugees, people with disabilities and people belonging to the LGBTQI Community. Discrimination in the health sector is a reality all over the world and it is a great challenge but not an intractable issue.
