At a time when grim photos of poverty-stricken nations and tales of genocide are only as far away as a newspaper or TV, many are led to believe their voices alone cannot be of any real consequence.

With an all-day summit in the HUB tomorrow, one campus group seeks to change this sentiment.

"Take Action: Your Power to Heal the World," the second-annual Summit on Global Health Disparities, will aim to let students from all walks of campus life know what they can do to combat inequality in health care and in society.

"What's really excellent about this year's conference is it's really about taking action," Stephanie Lin, co-founder of Students for Equal Health, the group organizing the summit said, "We want to impress upon students that even before you're professionals, you can come and do something about it."

Students for Equal Health began as a group that advocated primarily for equal health care, but has recently expanded its efforts to include other aspects of inequality.

"It's grown into trying to look at the big picture and at socioeconomic gaps, for example," Lin said. "The gap between the rich and the poor is huge, and we're really not very conscious of it ... How can we be the richest country and go out and try to change other parts of the world when we can't even fix the things that are here at home?"

Saturday's summit will feature a diverse lineup of speakers tackling topics from racism to health-care access to health in prisons. The variety of the speakers' backgrounds offers a holistic approach to the issues, allowing people to understand them from a multi-faceted viewpoint, Lin said.

One of the presentations, given by Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, a senior lecturer of health services, will highlight some staggering facts. The average life expectancy in Japan, for example, is 51 years longer than that in Swaziland, Bezruchka said. He also noted that while half of the money spent on health care worldwide is spent by the United States, the United Nations lists 29 countries as healthier than the United States.

"You can conclude that whatever we're buying with our health-care dollars is not helping," Bezruchka said.

As far as Saturday's conference goes, his goal is quite simple.

"Basically we're going to try to address how we need to change our ways," he said. "We have to think in terms of what produces health in society, and what produces health is entirely political."

Reach reporter Trevor Klein at news@thedaily.washington.edu.