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Fifth Annual Eccles Family Rural West Conference

A Healthier Rural West: Critical Issues…Innovative Solutions

Santa Fe, New Mexico, March 23-25, 2017

Video of Conference Keynotes and Panels

Friday Sessions - Archived Stream

Friday AM Part One

Friday AM Part Two

8:40 am MT (7:40 PT)
Opening Keynote: Two Critical Issues, Zero Innovative Solutions, Former U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman

9:00 am
Special Remarks: Earning the Rural West, David M. Kennedy, PhD

9:15 – 10:45 am MT
Opening Panel: What Will Deliver a Healthier Rural West? 

  • William deBuys, Writer and Conservationist
  • Phil Polakoff, MD, Stanford University
  • Craig Thomas, PhD, University of Washington
  • Moderator: Christopher Muste, PhD, University of Montana 

11:00am – 12:00 pm MT
Panel 2: Better Health (Care) for the Rural West

  • Sally M. Davis, PhD, University of New Mexico
  • Secretary Lynn Gallagher, State of New Mexico Department of Health
  • Arthur Kaufman, MD, University of New Mexico
  • Moderator: Phil Polakoff, MD, Stanford University

12:00 – 1:00 pm MT
Panel 3: A Healthier Rural Westerner

  • Gabriel Garcia, MD, Stanford University
  • Chitra Dinakar, MD, Stanford University
  • Charles Sorenson, MD, Intermountain Health Leadership Institute
  • Moderator: Phil Polakoff, MD, Stanford University

 

Friday Afternoon - Archived Stream

2:15 – 3:30 pm MT
Panel 4: What’s the Public in Public Lands?

  • John Freemuth, Boise State University
  • Anthony Rampton, Utah Attorney General’s Office, Public Lands Section
  • Jenna Whitlock, retired, Bureau of Land Management
  • Moderator: Patrick Shea

3:45 – 5:15 pm MT
Panel 5: Health Equity and Social Disparity

  • Michele Barry, MD, FACP, Stanford University
  • Denise Herrera, MS, PhD, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
  • Charles N. Martin, Jr., Martin Ventures
  • Bret Smoker MD, MPH, Indian Health Service
  • Moderator: Bruce Cain

 

Saturday, March 25 - Archived Stream

 

9:00 – 10:30 am MT (8:00 – 9:30 am PT)
Panel 6: Environmental Health: Managing Unmanageable Elements 

  • Bill Armstrong, U.S. Forest Service
  • Anne Bradley, The Nature Conservancy
  • Rodney Lewis, Akin Gump LLP
  • Rita Maguire, Maguire, Pearce & Storey LLC
  • Moderator: Felicity Barringer, Stanford University

10:45 – 11:45 am MT
Panel 7: News Deserts in the Rural West

  • Alisa Barba, Inside Energy News
  • Tazbah McCullah, KSFR Santa Fe Public Radio
  • Kate Schimel, High Country News
  • Moderator: James Bettinger, Stanford University

11:45 am MT
Concluding remarks, Bruce Cain

 

Organizers

      

Rural West Conference Volume

Bridging the Distance

Common Issues of the Rural West

Edited by David B. Danbom
Foreword by David M. Kennedy

Published in cooperation with the Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University
 
The University of Utah Press has published Bridging the Distance, a book by the Rural West Initiative of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. Edited by the distinguished historian David B. Danbom and with a foreword by Center co-founding director David M. Kennedy, the book explores the Rural West across four dimensions: Community, Land, Economics – and defining the Rural West itself. The book is the result of work presented at the first Conference on the Rural West, which took place in Ogden, Utah, in October 2012.