Health Disparities Resource Guide
Health Disparities refer to gaps in the quality of health and health care across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups. The Health Resources and Services Administration defines health and health care across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups as "population-specific differences in the presence of disease, health outcomes, or access to health care." In the United States, health disparities are well documented in minority populations such as African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Latinos. There are many causes for the existence of health disparities—from the biological to the social.
VCU RESOURCES AND OTHER HEALTH DISPARITIES CENTERS
Advances in Health Disparities
Research in the field of Health Disparities at VCU is spearheaded by Dr Wally Smith, M.D. and Steven H. Woolf, M.D., M.P.H.
VCU Center on Health Disparities
The VCU Health System, VCU Department of Epidemiology and Community Health and the School of World Studies are actively involved with the Center on Health Disparities. VCU Center on Health Disparities serves as a coordinating body to enhance a diverse and culturally aware environment in the VCU Health System with key goals of supporting the identification and elimination of disparities. Established in December 2005 under the leadership of Dr Wally Smith, M.D. chair of the Division of Quality Health Care. The Center develops and facilitates research, education, access to health care services and workforce diversity initiatives that will reduce health disparities in populations in Virginia.
Other Health Disparities Centers (pdf)
The Office of Minority Health
The mission of the Office of Minority Health (OMH) is to improve and protect the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will eliminate health disparities. Services include information and retrieval, knowledge center, resource persons network and newsletters.
Office of Minority Health & Health Disparities (CDC)
The Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities (OMHD) aims to accelerate CDC's health impact in the U.S. population and to eliminate health disparities for vulnerable populations as defined by race/ethnicity,
socio-economic
status, geography, gender, age, disability status, risk status related to sex and gender, and among other populations identified to be at-risk for health disparities.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) : Minority Health Subdirectory
Under the US Department of Health and Human Services, AHRQ, provides information on minority health for clinicians and consumers. Reports on Health Disparities meetings and workshops and publications are also available.
Virginia Department of Health Office of Minority Health and Public Health Policy
The mission of the State Office of Minority Health and Public Health Policy (OMHPHP) is to enhance health access of minorities in the Commonwealth through leadership, advocacy, education and proactive outreach for special programs and projects to improve access to healthcare and ultimately eliminate health disparities in Virginia.
Applied Research Center
Racial justice through research, activism and journalism. Publications include reports, commentaries, fact sheets, multimedia and news releases.
Research Center on Health Disparities
A project of The Public Health Sciences Institute of Morehouse College which seeks to close the gaps in health care through eradication of social determinants of health.
Selected Health Disparities Resource Guides and Libraries (pdf)
SELECTED daTA AND STATISTICS SITES
CDC Data & Statistics
There is a wealth of public health data and statistics on this page. Access FASTSTATS A-Z -
an alphabetical listing of statistics on topics of public health importance, Health, United States (HUS) -
the annual report on trends in health statistics, Health-E Stats -
a Web-only release of selected statistics and Vital Records.
FedStats - A "one-stop shopping center" for statistics from more than 70 U.S. federal agencies. The site includes a search function as well as an alphabetic index and a list of contacts for questions on statistical content.
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) - Public Health Data Warehouse with a number of health data including NHANES, NHCS and SLAITS. Many files and publications are available electronically. This site is only one example of the statistical information available from the federal government - be sure to check out the FedStats site listed above for numerous other sources.
CDC Wonder - From the Centers for Disease Control, CDC WONDER is "a general-purpose public health information and communications system. CDC WONDER provides query access to about 40 text-based and numeric databases. Numeric databases can provide, for example, the numbers and rates of sexually transmitted diseases, cancer cases, or deaths in the United States. Users can request data for any disease and demographic group, by submitting ad hoc queries against available data sets."
Excellence in Cultural Competence Training and Education: A Compendium of Best Practices
This compendium was created as a resource for training and education in cultural competence by
Creighton J. Hite, M.Ed
of the VCU
Institute for African-American Mental Health Training and Research. It offers useful information on cross cultural communication.
More Cultural CompetenceTools (pdf)
The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation Office of Minority Health
Covers topics such as Medicaid, Medicare, Insurance, HIV/AIDS, Prescription Drugs, State Policy, Access to Care and Racial Disparities. Provides daily health reports as well as weekly health disparities reports. Sign up for email alerts on Health Disparities news on this page.
The Disparities Solutions Center
The Disparities Solutions Center (DSC) at Massachusetts General Hospital
is composed of a multidisciplinary group of health policy experts, health services researchers and physicians. DSC is dedicated to the development and implementation of strategies that advance policy and practice to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
Institute of Medicine (IOM)- Minority Health
This page contains links to current projects, events, and reports concerning minority health. The IOM also has a publication on Health Literacy which also includes a PDF file of the report on Health Literacy: a prescription to end confusion.
Minority Health Resource Center
Minority Health information and data for families and practitioners.
Geographic Information Services (GIS)
VCU Libraries owns many spatial and numerical data sets, most of which are produced by the Federal government on CD-ROM or a similar format. Use the VCU Libraries Catalog to search the collection. Search tip: You may want to use the Advanced Search option and limit the format to Computer Software to find the majority of these data sets.
RefShare Health Disparities Sites collection
An extended searchable folder of book, journal and web sites, some of them are mentioned in the Resource Guide. These resources can be downloaded to your RefWorks account.
SELECTED HEALTH DISPARITY JOURNALS IN THE VCU LIBRARIES
Journal of the National Medical Association available in print and online starting from 2006
Journal of health care for the poor and under served available on line starting from 2004
The Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice is an on-line journal that explores the problems and challenges of health disparities among the diverse populations of the United States. VCU libraries does not subscribe to this journal but you can request articles from it through Illiad.
SELECTED bOOKS AVAILABLE IN THE vcu lIBRARIES
| Health disparities : bridging the gap [electronic resource] | HE20.3352:H34 2000 |
| Examining the health disparities research plan of the National Institutes of Health : unfinished business | RA418.3.U6 E93 2006 |
| Minority populations and health : an introduction to health disparities in the United States | RA448.4 .L38 2005 |
| Multicultural medicine and health disparities | RA418.5.T73 M855 2006 |
| Praeger handbook of Black American health : policies and issues behind disparities in health | RA448.5.N4 H364 2004 (2 vols) |
| Awakening Hippocrates : a primer on health, poverty, and global service | HC79.P6 O55 2006 |
| Educating for moral action : a sourcebook in health and rehabilitation ethics | R724 .E325 2005 |
| Geographic information systems and public health [electronic resource] : eliminating perinatal disparity | RA566 .C87 2006eb |
More VCU Libraries Resources on Cultural Competence (pdf)
Dr. Wally Smith's Presentation on "Local and Global Strategies to Reduce Health Disparities" (pdf)
The following are two videos of the Latino Health Summit presentations on cultures and beliefs in health care hosted by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Center on Health Disparities and the School of World Studies on November 16th and 17th 2006 at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. To view the videos you must have a multi media plug in like RealPlayer or Quicktime
2006 Latino Health Summit Video Part 1 (MP4)
2006 Latino Health Summit Video Part 2 (MP4)