Minority Health and Health Equity Archive
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/21769
Welcome to the Minority Health and Health Equity Archive (MHHEA), an electronic archive for digital resource materials in the fields of minority health and health disparities research and policy. It is offered as a no-charge resource to the public, academic scholars and health science researchers interested in the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.
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Item State of the USA Health Indicators: Letter Report(The National Academies Press, 2009) UNSPECIFIEDResearchers, policymakers, sociologists and doctors have long asked how to best measure the health of a nation, yet the challenge persists. The nonprofit State of the USA, Inc. (SUSA) is taking on this challenge, demonstrating how to measure the health of the United States. The organization is developing a new website intended to provide reliable and objective facts about the U.S. in a number of key areas, including health, and to provide an interactive tool with which individuals can track the progress made in each of these areas. In 2008, SUSA asked the Institute of Medicine's Committee on the State of the USA Health Indicators to provide guidance on 20 key indicators to be used on the organization's website that would be valuable in assessing health.Item America's Health Rankings: A Call to Action for Individuals & Their Communities 2008 Edition(2008) UNSPECIFIEDHealth is a result of our personal behaviors, our individual genetic predisposition to disease, the environment and the community in which we live, the clinical care we receive and the policies and practices of our health care and prevention systems. Each of us, individually, as a community, and as a society, strives to optimize these health determinants, so that all of us can have a long, diseasefree and robust life regardless of race, gender or socio-economic status. This report looks at the four groups of health determinants that can be affected:Item Compendium of Cultural Competence Initiatives in Health Care(The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2003) UNSPECIFIEDactivities that seek to reduce cultural and communication barriers to health care. These activities are often described as cultural competency and/or cross-cultural education. The Institute of Medicine report (2002)1, Unequal Treatment, recommended that the health care system pursue several of these techniques as part of a multi-level strategy to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in medical care. This compendium is a first attempt at describing these activities in a single document. It was prepared in response to the many requests from the media and others to define cultural competency and identify efforts underway in this emerging field. In a recent article, Brach and Fraser (2000)2 clustered the techniques frequently discussed in the literature on cultural competency into nine categories: 1) interpreter services; 2) recruitment and retention policies for minority staff; 3) training; 4) coordinating with traditional healers; 5) use of community health workers; 6) culturally competent health promotion; 7) including family and/or community members in care-giving; 8) immersion into another culture; and 9) administrative or organizational accommodations.Item PRESCRIPTION FOR PENNSYLVANIA Right State Right Plan Right Now: STRATEGIC PLAN(2008) UNSPECIFIEDThe present system of providing health care was designed to treat acute illness, not control chronic diseases. In the face of rising levels of chronic disease and spiraling health care costs, governments, businesses, insurance companies and Pennsylvania families have, out of necessity, chosen to limit health care services, benefits and visits as ways of fighting expenses. Evidence is mounting around the country that exactly the opposite approach to chronic disease is more successful. Early, consistent and persistent health care intervention for those with chronic disease will likely be more cost-effective and will dramatically improve the quality of life for anyone with chronic disease. In May 2007 the Pennsylvania Chronic Care Management, Reimbursement and Cost Reduction Commission was created and its first requirement was to develop a strategic plan for a Chronic Care Model to improve the quality of care while reducing avoidable illnesses and their attendant costs. This report is part of that requirement.Item NATIONAL VOLUNTARY CONSENSUS STANDARDS FOR AMBULATORY CARE: PERFORMANCE MEASURES TO ADDRESS HEALTHCARE DISPARITIES(2007) UNSPECIFIEDAll Americans should receive quality health care, regardless of their race, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, insurance status, or gender. Unfortunately, significant health care disparities based on these characteristics persist, and in some cases are getting worse1. The 2001 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, Crossing the Quality Chasm, identified eliminating healthcare disparities as one of the six overarching goals to improve the quality of the American healthcare system(Institute of Medicine). In 2003, the IOM published Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Health Care2. This report assessed the extent to which racial and ethnic healthcare disparities in the United States can be directly attributed to race and ethnicity and not other know factors such at access to care, insurance status or ability to pay for care, and provide recommendations regarding there elimination. In 2003, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) published the first national comprehensive report that measured differences in access and use of health care services by various populations in the United States. The results painted a stark picture of the disparate care delivered by the US healthcare system. The 2006 National Healthcare Disparities Report found that for most core quality measures, Blacks (73%), Hispanics (77%), and poor people (71%) received worse quality care than their reference groups3. Additionally, for most measures for poor people (67%), disparities were increasing the most in minorities with no significant changes in disparities observed. Even more alarming, disparities were increasing and more prevalent in chronic disease management. Addressing issues of quality within vulnerable patient populations is the overarching highest priority within each the 23 National Quality Forum (NQF)-endorsedTM national priority areas for healthcare quality improvement4. This series of recommendations is a step towards integrating the reduction of healthcare disparities into the larger quality measurement and pubic reporting agenda.Item America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well Being 2007(US Government Printing Office, 2007) UNSPECIFIEDThe Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics’ primary mission is to enhance and improve consistency in data collection and reporting on children and families. After a decade of publishing its report, the Forum presents this newly restructured 10th anniversary edition of America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2007 which provides the Nation with a summary of national indicators of child well-being and monitors changes in these indicators. In addition to providing data in an easy-to-use, non-technical format, the purpose of the report is to stimulate discussions among policymakers and the public, exchanges between data providers and policy communities, and improvements in Federal data on children and families.Item Health Insurance Plans Address Disparities in Care: Highlights of a 2004 AHIP/RWJF Quantitative Survey Collection and Use of Data on Race and Ethnicity(2004) UNSPECIFIEDAmericans receive health care services that are in sync with the latest scientific evidence only about half the time. Studies also find that racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. receive a lower quality of care than non-minorities and are at greater risk for certain diseases. There is widespread agreement that valid and reliable data are fundamental building blocks to identifying differences in the care experienced by specific populations, to developing programs to address differences, and to ensuring a higher standard of care. To date, national studies have identified very few providers or institutions that address disparities in care using a data-driven, quality improvement approach. In 2003/04, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) collaborated with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to survey health insurance plans about the extent to which they collect and use data on the race and ethnicity of their enrollees to improve quality of care. The primary objectives of the survey were to: 1) assess the extent to which health insurance plans collect these data (including primary language); 2) highlight barriers to the collection of these data; and 3) identify health insurance plans interested in potential future collaborations.Item Health Insurance Plans Address Disparities in Care: Challenges and Opportunities(2004) UNSPECIFIEDIn 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a landmark report indicating that racial and ethnic minorities receive lower quality health care than non-minorities, even when factors related to access (e.g., insurance status and income) are controlled. There is widespread agreement that data are fundamental building blocks to identifying differences in the care experienced by specific populations, to developing programs to address differences, and to ensuring a higher standard of care. Since then, there has been growing interest in understanding the extent to which health insurance plans, providers, and other organizations collect and use data on race and ethnicity to reduce health care disparities. To date, national studies have identified very few providers or institutions that address disparities in care using a data-driven, quality improvement proach. In 2003/04, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) worked with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to survey health insurance plans about the extent to which they collect and use data on the race and ethnicity of their enrollees to improve quality of care. AHIP also conducted follow-up qualitative research to obtain more specific information, to solicit recommendations on how to improve the collection and use of these data, and to explore potential future collaborations. A number of challenges and opportunities emerged from this quantitative and qualitative research.Item Comprehensive Strategic Plan To Reduce and Ultimately Eliminate Health Disparities(2002) UNSPECIFIEDDespite progress in biomedical science over the past several decades that has increased longevity and improved quality of life for many in our Nation, a heavier burden of disease continues to be borne by some populations, particularly minorities, the poor and underserved. For example, the death rate from prostate cancer among African American men is almost twice that of white men, and stomach cancer mortality is substantially higher among Asian-Pacific Islanders, including Native Hawaiians, than other populations. Cervical cancer incidence in Hispanic women has been consistently higher at all ages than for other women, and African American women have the highest death rate from cervical cancer. Overall, men are about 50 percent more likely than women to die from cancer, and among all women, Alaskan Natives are about 30 percent more likely to die from cancer. It is these disturbing statistics coupled with the fact that reductions in cancer incidence and mortality are occurring in many, but not all, sectors of our Nation, that prompts NCI to examine major determinants of cancer health disparities (e.g., poverty, culture, and social injustice). It is the interrelationship among these factors that must be carefully weaved into the cancer research agenda in order to remedy the unequal burden of cancer.