September 2006

In this Issue:

New Resources

• The Campaign for Children's Health Care: "When an Apple a Day Isn't Enough"
• The Commonwealth Fund: "Obtaining Data on Patient Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language in Health Care Organizations: Current Challenges and Proposed Solutions"
• Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.: “Interpretation: Estimates of the Cost of Interpretation Services for Connecticut Medicaid Recipients”
• The National Association of Counties: Health care resource maps

Activities in the Field

Policy Updates  

Upcoming Events

New Resources

The Campaign for Children’s Health Care has launched its national essay contest, “When an Apple a Day Isn’t Enough.” In this contest, children and young adults ages 9-18 are asked to explain how the ability to obtain the health services they need affects their lives and the lives of those around them. The essay contest began on September 5, 2006, and ends on October 31, 2006.

The Commonwealth Fund released a report, Obtaining Data on Patient Race, Ethnicity, and Primary Language in Health Care Organizations: Current Challenges and Proposed Solutions, that examines current data collection practices in hospitals and other health care organizations. The authors argue that health care organizations should obtain race, ethnicity, and primary language information directly from patients or their family members. The authors also offer solutions to common barriers in data collection, and they propose a uniform framework that hospitals can adopt to gather accurate information about their patient population.

Mathematica Policy Research Inc. has published  Interpretation: Estimates of the Cost of Interpretation Services for Connecticut Medicaid Recipients. This report analyses the size of the Limited English Proficiency population within Connecticut’s Medicaid program and estimates the cost of providing face-to-face interpreters in compliance with federal laws and guidelines.

The National Association of Counties has posted health care resource maps on their Web site. These maps use geographic information system (GIS) technology to highlight U.S. counties with particular health care needs, including those counties that have uninsurance rates above the national average and those that are designated as medically underserved.

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Activities in the Field

Healthy Communities San Mateo:
A Community Health Improvement Initiative to Eliminate Health Disparities

Healthy Communities is a collaborative community project of the San Mateo County (CA) Health Department. It is an outgrowth of the Healthy Communities Summit of 2004, which was started by District 4 Supervisor Rose Jacobs Gibson. San Mateo County is home to a very racially and ethnically diverse population. Prompted by this diverse population, and by the increasingly apparent health disparities that minorities in the county experience, participants in the 2004 Summit made a commitment to eliminating racial and ethnic health disparities in San Mateo County. The group chose three priority areas as the focus of their new initiative:

• Childhood obesity prevention;
• Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) prevention; and
• Linguistic access to health care.

After systematically collecting and analyzing county health data regarding the priority areas, the Health Department brought together several community task forces to address the childhood obesity and ATOD prevention. These working groups developed documents describing the needs and goals of the community as voiced by a diverse array of stakeholders, including health care and social service providers, schools, families, local media, businesses, city planners, law enforcement, and local government officials. The documents then go on to detail action steps the community will need to take to attain these goals. Implementation of priority items from the “Blueprint for Prevention of Childhood Obesity: A Call to Action” is now underway, while steps to carry out the “Roadmap for Alcohol, Tobacco, and other Drug Prevention: A Guide to Community Action” will begin shortly.

To address the priority area of linguistic access to health care, Healthy Communities commissioned an extensive study. Key findings from that study, as well as recommendations regarding improving linguistic access for individuals with limited English proficiency, will be released throughout the county in October 2006.

To learn more about Healthy Communities, please contact Cristina Heinz at cheinz@co.sanmateo.ca.us or by phone at 650-573-2304, OR contact Srija Srinivasan at srinivasan@co.sanmateo.ca.us or by phone at 650-573-2095. You can also visit the group’s Web site at www.smhealth.org/hppp.

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Policy Updates

Every year, the U.S. Census Bureau reports on the number of uninsured Americans. And once again, according to recently released data, the number of uninsured racial and ethnic minorities has grown. While the number of uninsured individuals in 2005 increased for every racial and ethnic group, minorities were hit particularly hard last year, accounting for nearly three-fourths of the growth in the number of uninsured Americans. Here’s what the most recent Census Bureau figures reveal about the uninsured population among communities of color:

• In 2005, 14.1 million Latinos went without coverage, compared to 13.5 million in 2004. Latinos also continued to have the highest uninsured rate of all racial and ethnic groups, with 32.7 percent of this group going without health insurance in 2005.
• The number of uninsured African Americans grew from 7 million in 2004 to 7.2 million in 2005, the sharpest increase experienced by African Americans since the Census Bureau began collecting detailed data on race in 2002. Overall, 19.6 percent of African Americans had no health insurance in 2005. 
• The number of Asians and Pacific Islanders without health insurance increased from 2 million in 2004 to 2.3 million in 2005. Asians and Pacific Islanders also experienced the largest growth in the uninsured rate, rising from 16.5 percent without coverage in 2004 to 17.9 percent without coverage in 2005.

Perhaps more disturbing, the percentage of children under 18 without insurance actually increased last year—the first time this has happened since 1998. What’s more, the loss of insurance coverage occurred disproportionately among communities of color. For example, the uninsured rate among Latino children jumped from 20.6 percent in 2004 to 21.9 percent in 2005, compared to a smaller increase among non-Latino white children from 8.4 percent to 8.6 percent. Overall, the number of uninsured Latino children increased by nearly 300,000, while the number of uninsured Asian children jumped by more than 100,000.

These new numbers reveal a growing gap in coverage for racial and ethnic minorities. The widening disparities in children’s coverage deserve immediate attention, especially as policymakers begin debating the reauthorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). SCHIP has proven to be an effective tool for reducing disparities in access to care.

You can find out more about the problem of uninsured children, including breakdowns by race and ethnicity, by reading two fact sheets from the Campaign for Children’s Health Care: "America’s Uninsured Children" and "Why Health Insurance Matters for Children."

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Upcoming Events

• The Commonwealth Fund will release the first ever scorecard evaluating the U.S. health care system on key measures of quality, access, efficiency, and equity on September 20, 2006, at The Hotel Washington in Washington, D.C. For more information, call 301-652-1558 or e-mail jflowers@burnesscommunications.com.
• The National Minority AIDS Council is hosting the 2006 U.S. Conference on AIDS on September 21-25, 2006, at the Westin Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida. For more information, call 202-483-6622 ext. 343.
• eHealth Initiative and Bridges to Excellence is co-sponsoring the 3rd Health Information Technology Summit on September 25-27, 2006, in Washington, D.C. at the Renaissance Hotel. For more information, call 760-365-0837 or e-mail registration@hcconferences.com.
• The Consumer Health Foundation is hosting “Roots and Remedies, Creating Health Equality through Social Justice” on September 27, 2006, at The George Washington University Marvin Center Grand Ballroom in Washington, D.C. For more information, call 202-939-3390.
• The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute is hosting the 2006 Public Policy Conference on October 2-3, 2006, at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. For more information, call 202-543-1771.
• The Greenlining Institute, the UC Berkeley Stem Cell Center, and the Children’s Hospital of Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) will be co-sponsoring a conference entitled, “Toward Fair Cures: Integrating the Benefits of Diversity in California’s Stem Cell Research Program.” The conference will take place on October 14, 2006, at Children’s Hospital of Oakland Research Institute in Oakland, California. For more information, call 510-926-4014 or e-mail joseft@greenlining.org.
• The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is hosting a one-day seminar entitled “Focus on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services and Health Care Disparities” on October 18, 2006, at the Hilton Arlington in Arlington, Virginia. For more information, call 202-955-3500.

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