Keynote Sessions

Join Dr. Stacey Diane Arañez Litam as she unpacks the origin of scarcity mindsets, unhelpful relationship tendencies, and limiting cultural scripts. Informed by Litam’s lived experiences as a Filipina and Chinese immigrant as well as by her professional identities as a professor, researcher, and mental health clinician, this keynote provides the foundation for timely conversations, offers a new framework for cultivating relationships that heal our wounded inner child, and centers the importance of generational healing, personal growth, and unlocking the power behind our stories.

Within this keynote address, the speaker aims to inform both public health professionals and youth participants about how upstream factors affect downstream health outcomes. Discover how the places we live, learn, work, and play shape our relationship with substances and our capacity for health and wellbeing. This keynote examines the powerful connection between social determinants of health and substance misuse prevention. It provides a framework for understanding how environmental, economic, and social factors link to the Risk and Protective Theory developed by Hawkins and Catalano and thereby influence vulnerability and resilience in communities. Participants will gain insights into how addressing root causes through policy and community-level interventions can create lasting prevention outcomes that extend far beyond our lifetimes and for future generations to come.