Members of the community will gather Saturday, Oct. 7, at Children's Hospital of Michigan for the annual Health FOCUS 2000 Conference to help improve the health of children in urban settings.

Health FOCUS, which stands for Health For Our Children in Urban Settings, is an organization of Wayne State University School of Medicine students, physicians, residents and administrative staff of Children's Hospital and the Detroit Medical Center. The group's annual day-long conference seeks to expand awareness of issues affecting urban child health, increase networking contacts among people in varied aspects of urban child well-being and serve as a catalyst for collaborative efforts to improve urban child health.

This year's theme is "FOCUSing on Solutions" and includes sessions on improving immunization rates, the roles of Big Brothers and Big Sisters as well as community centers and child health and safety at school. This year's keynote speaker is Joseph A. DiCara, MD, a pediatrician in neonatology at Chicago's Prentice Hospital Special Care Nursery.

Members of the public are welcome to attend. The targeted audience is physicians; physicians-in-training; students of medicine, nursing and social work; allied health professionals; and community organizations who are interested in child health issues.

The cost of the conference is $10 for non-physicians and $20 for physicians. A box lunch is included. On-site registration is available.