Helen-Maria Lekas, an associate professor of sociomedical sciences, will be featured in Honolulu Community College’s 4th Social Science Speaker Series Annual Colloquium on Friday, February 13, 1:30 p.m. in the Norman W.H. Loui Conference Center, Building 2, Room 201. Lekas is with the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University’s Medical Center.
“My presentation will focus on how our place on the social ladder shapes our dispositions towards our health and the practices we follow to take care of our bodies,” explains Lekas. “I hope to begin a discussion of how we need to move beyond simplistic notions often used in public health that if we just educate people about their health and even provide services and programs they will engage in health promoting or protective behaviors and certainly utilize health and other supportive services.”
Since joining the faculty in sociomedical sciences and as a member of the Center for the Psychosocial Study of Health and Illness, Lekas has served as a principal investigator on several National Institutes of Health funded studies exploring the structural-, interpersonal- and individual-level factors that undermine people’s health and wellbeing.
“With examples from my NIH funded study called Bedside to Community, I will demonstrate how structural barriers and opportunities interface with agency and generate our dispositions to perceive and act in the world in certain ways.”
More about the Social Science Speaker Series
The Social Science Speaker Series, now in its fourth year, has brought scholars engaging in cutting-edge social science research in various disciplines and subjects to Honolulu Community College.
“The intent to begin this series was to bring researchers to campus to talk about their original research; thus, creating learning opportunities that would be otherwise difficult to obtain,” shares Fumiko Takasugi, assistant professor of sociology at Honolulu CC. “This raises the level of academic rigor for faculty as well as students, staff, administration and the public,”
—By Billie Lueder
