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 Barbara Lee, Tri-Caucus Members Introduce the Health Equity and Accountability Act(2011) DeKleer , KristalToday, Members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) introduced the Health Equity and Accountability Act of 2011, a bill that complements the efforts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and focuses on eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities. The bill was formally introduced today by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Chair of CAPAC’s Healthcare Taskforce, and included 68 original cosponsors. “This legislation will serve a vital purpose in our nation’s health care system, bringing health equity to all corners of our nation,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, Chair of the Healthcare Task…Item The Science of Eliminating Health Disparities: Embracing a New Paradigm(2010) Ruffin, J.Health disparities in the United States will not be solved by an isolated cadre of public health experts—the problems are complex, and achieving health equity will require a profound transformation of our health care system and our society. Solutions will have to emerge from a large and expanding network of institutional partnerships in which organizations that represent health disparity communities play a preeminent role. This was our thinking when the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) convened the 2008 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Science of Eliminating Health Disparities Summit. With its rich variety of presenters and . . .Item PLAN TO LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS AND ENSURE AFFORDABLE, ACCESSIBLE HEALTH COVERAGE FOR ALL(2008) Obama, BarackHealth care costs are skyrocketing. Health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 8 years, rising 3.7 times faster than wages in the past 8 years, and increasing co-pays and deductibles threaten access to care. Many insurance plans cover only a limited number of doctors’ visits or hospital days, exposing families to unlimited financial liability. Over half of all personal bankruptcies today are caused by medical bills. Lack of affordable health care is compounded by serious flaws in our health care delivery system. About 100,000 Americans die from medical errors in hospitals every year. One-quarter of all medical spending goes to administrative and overhead costs, and reliance on antiquated paper-based record and information systems needlessly increases these costs. Tens of millions of Americans are uninsured because of rising costs. Over 45 million Americans— including over 8 million children6—lack health insurance. Eighty percent of the uninsured are in working families. Even those with health coverage are struggling to cope with soaring medical costs. Skyrocketing health care costs are making it increasingly difficult for employers, particularly small businesses, to provide health insurance to their employees. Underinvestment in prevention and public health. Too many Americans go without high-value preventive services, such as cancer screening and immunizations to protect against flu or pneumonia. The nation faces epidemics of obesity and chronic diseases as well as new threats of pandemic flu and bioterrorism. Yet despite all of this less than 4 cents of every health care dollar is spent on prevention and public health. Our health care system has become a disease care system, and the time for change is well overdue.Item Providing Health Care to Latino Immigrants: Community Based Efforts in the Rural Midwest(2004) Casey, Michelle M.; Blewett, Lynn A.; Call, Kathleen T.We examined case studies of 3 rural Midwestern communities to assess local health care systems’ response to rapidly growing Latino populations. Currently, clinics provide free or low-cost care, and schools, public health, social services, and religious organizations connect Latinos to the health care system. However, many unmet health care needs result from lack of health insurance, limited income, and linguistic and cultural barriers. Targeted safety net funding would help meet Latino health care needs in rural communities with limited resources.Item Race and Trust in the Health Care System(2003) Boulware, L. Ebony; Cooper, Lisa A.; Ratner, Lloyd E.; LaVeist, Thomas A.; Powe, Neil R.Objective. A legacy of racial discrimination in medical research and the health care system has been linked to a low level of trust in medical research and medical care among African Americans. While racial differences in trust in physicians have been demonstrated, little is known about racial variation in trust of health insurance plans and hospitals. For the present study, the authors analyzed responses to a cross sectional telephone survey to assess the independent relationship of self-reported race (non-Hispanic black or non-Hispanic white) with trust in physicians, hospitals, and health insurance plans. Methods. Respondents ages 18–75 years were asked to rate their level of trust in physicians, health insurance plans, and hospitals. Items from the Medical Mistrust Index were used to assess fear and suspicion of hospitals. Results. Responses were analyzed for 49 (42%) non-Hispanic black and 69 (58%) non-Hispanic white respondents (N=118; 94% of total survey population). A majority of respondents trusted physicians (71%) and hospitals (70%), but fewer trusted their health insurance plans (28%). After adjustment for potential confounders, non-Hispanic black respondents were less likely to trust their physicians than non-Hispanic white respondents (adjusted absolute difference 37%; p=0.01) and more likely to trust their health insurance plans (adjusted absolute difference 28%; p=0.04). The difference in trust of hospitals (adjusted absolute difference 13%) was not statistically significant. Non-Hispanic black respondents were more likely than non-Hispanic white respondents to be concerned about personal privacy and the potential for harmful experimentation in hospitals. Conclusions. Patterns of trust in components of our health care system differ by race. Differences in trust may reflect divergent cultural experiences of blacks and whites as well as differences in expectations for care. Improved understanding of these factors is needed if efforts to enhance patient access to and satisfaction with care are to be effective.Item All Americans at risk of receiving poor quality health care(2006) UNSPECIFIEDA landmark Foundation-initiated study by the RAND Corporation found that Americans receive only half of recommended medical care.1 This study added to the mounting evidence of quality deficiencies in the U.S. health care system, which was brought to the forefront in a 2001 Institute of Medicine report documenting the chasm between the care Americans have now and the care Americans should have.2 A new study from this RAND research project asks the next logical question: How are patient characteristics such as age, gender, race/ethnicity and income associated with the quality of health care received? This question has been widely studied, but largely as it relates to whether an encounter with a provider occurs. Whether necessary preventive measures, treatments or procedures are provided at similar rates to individuals with different social and demographic characteristics is less understood.Item Conference at USC addresses state of health care system(2004) Paik, ChristieNearly 300 students and health care professionals attended Saturday's annual Minority Health Conference at the Health Sciences Campus at the University of Southern California, an effort to address minority health disparities and raise awareness of minority health issues in Southern California. "Have you heard that the United States has the best health care system in the world?" asked David Carlisle, director of the Office of Statewide Health Planning & Development and the event's keynote speaker. "Are we really as well off as we think in health care?"