HHS Announces Plan to Reduce Health Disparities
April 8, 2011

National Partnership for Action launches strategy to strengthen and expand community-led efforts to achieve health equity

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today launched two strategic plans aimed at reducing health disparities.

The HHS Action Plan to Reduce Health Disparities outlines goals and actions HHS will take to reduce health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities.

HHS also released the National Stakeholder Strategy for Achieving Health Equity, a common set of goals and objectives for public and private sector initiatives and partnerships to help racial and ethnic minorities and other underserved groups reach their full health potential. The strategy, a product of the National Partnership for Action (NPA), incorporates ideas, suggestions and comments from thousands of individuals and organizations across the country. The NPA was coordinated by the HHS Office of Minority Health.

Racial and ethnic minorities still lag behind in many health outcome measures. They are less likely to get the preventive care they need to stay healthy, more likely to suffer from serious illnesses, such as diabetes or heart disease, and when they do get sick, are less likely to have access to quality health care.

The Affordable Care Act offers the potential to address the needs of racial and ethnic minority populations, by bringing down health care costs, investing in prevention and wellness, supporting improvements in primary care, and creating linkages between the traditional realms of health and social services

“For the first time, the United States has a coordinated road map designed to give everyone the chance to live a healthy life,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “We all need to work together to combat this persistent problem so that we can build healthier communities and a stronger nation.”

Today, Secretary Sebelius will meet with patients, community leaders and advocates at the Boriken Community Health Center in East Harlem, N.Y., to see firsthand how communities are addressing gaps in coverage. Later today, she also will keynote the National Action Network’s Women’s Power Lunch to outline the “call to action” to end disparities in health and health care.

Goals of the HHS Action Plan include transforming health care and expanding access, building on the provisions of the Affordable Care Act related to expanded insurance coverage and increased access to care. The plan also calls for more opportunities to increase the number of students from populations underrepresented in the health professions, train more people in medical interpretation to help serve patients with a limited command of English, and train community workers to help people navigate the system.

The plan also calls for HHS to set data standards and upgrade collection and analysis of data on race, ethnicity, primary language and other demographic categories in line with new provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

“Health disparities have burdened our country for too long,” said Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH. “This plan reaffirms and revitalizes a national commitment to helping all persons reach their full health potential.”

Local groups can use the National Stakeholder Strategy to identify which goals are most important for their communities and adopt the most effective strategies and action steps to help reach them.

Both plans call for federal agencies and their partners to work together on social, economic and environmental factors that contribute to health disparities.

“Where people live, learn, work and play affects their health as much as their access to health care,” said Garth Graham, MD, MPH, deputy assistant secretary for minority health and director of the HHS Office of Minority Health. “We have to confront the social, economicand environmental factors that contribute to health disparitiesif we are to fulfill the President’s goal of ‘winning the future."

The HHS Office of Minority Health is also launching new web pages to provide information and tools for organizations and individuals working to reduce health care disparities.

For more information about health disparities and the Affordable Care Act, visit: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/04/hdstrategy04082011.html

Click here to read the HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

The HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities outlines goals and actions HHS will take to reduce health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities. With the HHS Disparities Action Plan, the Department commits to continuously assessing the impact of all policies and programs on racial and ethnic health disparities. It will promote integrated approaches, evidence-based programs and best practices to reduce these disparities. The HHS Action Plan builds on the strong foundation of the Affordable Care Act and is aligned with programs and initiatives such as Healthy People 2020, the First Lady's Let's Move initiative and the President's National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

Health Care Quality Still Improving Slowly, But Disparities and Gaps in Access to Care Persist 
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
February 2011

Improvements in health care quality continue to progress at a slow rate – about 2.3 percent a year; however, disparities based on race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status and other factors persist at unacceptably high levels, according to the 2010 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report released by AHRQ.  The reports, which are mandated by Congress, show trends by measuring health care quality for the nation using a group of credible core measures. The data are based on more than 200 health care measures categorized in several areas of quality: effectiveness, patient safety, timeliness, patient-centeredness, care coordination, efficiency, health system infrastructure, and access.  Few disparities in quality of care are getting smaller, and almost no disparities in access to care are getting smaller, according to the report. Overall, blacks, American Indians and Alaska Natives received worse care than whites for about 40 percent of core measures. Asians received worse care than whites for about 20 percent of core measures. And Hispanics received worse care than whites for about 60 percent of core measures.  Poor people received worse care than high-income people for about 80 percent of core measures. 

 Click here to access the quality and disparities reports. 
Print copies are available by sending an e-mail to ahrqpubs@ahrq.hhs.gov.
 

Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in Miami-Dade County
February 29, 2008

This report was created as part of the Mobilizing for Access through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) project, to be used as a resource for the Community Health Status Assessment. It is intended to give the reader a sense of the “big picture” concerning racial and ethnic health disparities in Miami-Dade County by utilizing readily available data from the FloridaCHARTS Web site, the Living Healthy, Living Longer Survey (2007), and Prevention Quality Indicators from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), with comparisons to Healthy People 2010 targets.

To view Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in Miami-Dade County, click here.

Black Community Health Forum

On July 21, 2008 the Miami-Dade County Health Department, in partnership with a wide variety of healthcare and community-based organizations, hosted a Black Community Health Forum. The event featured a presentation on the causes and effects of health disparities in our Black communities, followed by several speakers who discussed community-based approaches to improving Black health.  Rev. Dr. Ted Greer, from the South Dade Children's Resource Network, discussed the role of faith-based organizations, and Chelsea Hall, from the American Cancer Society, talked about their public/private partnerships to reduce breast and prostate cancer.  Participants had the opportunity to ask questions and make comments or suggestions.  As the event concluded, everyone was asked to pledge to take action-such as adopting healthier lifestyles, scheduling an annual exam, starting a worksite wellness program, or encouraging their elected officials to support public policies that increase access to care and reduce health disparities. 

Click here to view the featured presentation.