SEQUINS
Annual Meeting
May 15, 2025
Charleston,
South Carolina
The SEQUINS Annual Meeting held in the Spring each year, is a multidisciplinary one-day scientific forum focused on nervous system health and care, with the overarching goal of reducing neurological inequities and disparities, and accelerating the translation of research findings to improve outcomes for disproportionately burdened populations.
Lofty Learning in the Luscious Low Country
Image from Pixabay
Image by Don Stelmaszek from Pixabay
Choice of Convening SEQUINS in Charleston, SC
The social drivers of health include the economic, social, and political circumstances that profoundly influence the health of individuals. As such, it may be no coincidence that the annual meeting focused on health inequities and aimed at illuminating and inspiring scientific advancements is held in Charleston, South Carolina.
On one hand, Charleston is a richly elegant city, which has won national recognition as a top destination for tourism, for being a premier “master planned city” and “the most polite city.” Charleston is known for its old colonial homes painted in pastel colors, iron gates, murmuring fountains, cobblestone streets, moss draped oaks, rustling Palmetto trees, Gothic-style churches, shrimp trawlers, sweetgrass basket weavers, jewelry makers, and delicious, blended cornucopia of English, French, and West African flavors called “Lowcountry cooking.” For several years, Charleston has been voted the No. 1 city in the United States and Canada based on its historic sights and landmarks, culture and arts, restaurants and food, people and friendliness, and shopping and value. Condé Nast Traveler, noted that Charleston’s “vibrant culture, genuine hospitality, and wonderful people make it such a special place to both live and visit.”
On the other hand, Charleston’s history may serve as an exemplar of the foundation for the types of neurological disparities affecting several disparate populations today, including the comparatively very high stroke mortality rates seen among people in this region (vs. the rest of the United States), and especially among those of African ancestry (vs. those of European ancestry). Approximately, 40% of slaves who crossed the Atlantic from Africa, i.e., ~ 400,000 people came to the United States through the port city of Charleston, South Carolina, during the 18th and 19th centuries. The term “weathering” encapsulates the cumulative changes that occur in bodily systems as a function of repeated exposure to social adversity such as slavery. The term “embodiment” “characterizes the sculpting of internal biological systems that occur due to prolonged exposure to certain practices such as Jim Crow laws or Redlining.
Charleston's juxtaposition of a rich cultural environment and challenging racial history, both which strongly impact on health, form an intriguing backdrop for researchers to congregate on a yearly basis to “advance brain health equity through science.”
