Copyright 2000 Newsday, Inc.
Newsday (New York, NY)
November 10, 2000, Friday QUEENS EDITION
SECTION: NEWS; Page A17
LENGTH: 433 words
HEADLINE:
STUDY: DISPARITIES IN MINORITY HEALTH CARE
BYLINE: By Curtis L. Taylor. STAFF WRITER
BODY:
Minorities are more likely than whites to
be uninsured, die from heart disease and use emergency rooms as
their primary source of medical treatment, according to a study released
yesterday.
The 28-page report, "Closing the Gaps: Racial Disparities in
Our Health Care System," found that citywide disparities exist
in three major categories: health care delivery, interaction
between patients and health care professionals, and the final
health care outcomes and survival rates.
"The
disparities...are extremely disturbing," Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer
said in releasing the report, which was conducted by a commission of experts and
supported by his office. "We must change practices so that doctors and hospitals
provide equal treatment to all people, regardless of color of their skin or what
health insurance coverage they have." To that end, the
Bronx-based Institute for Urban Family Health, a private nonprofit service
agency, said it had been awarded a $ 4.2 million grant from the National Centers
for Disease Control. Under the four-year project, which began last month, the
institute will work to eliminate racial disparities in diabetes and heart
disease in West Tremont, University, High Bridge and Morrisania.
Dr.
Neil S. Calman, president and co-founder of the institute, said the grant will
"flow through us to 10 community-based organizations to educate and empower
people in the Bronx so that they can improve their own health care."
Calman said that despite New York City being "the health capital of the
world" many of the most sophisticated health treatments are not readily
available to minority groups.
"This is a correctable problem...but it is
a complicated problem and requires people from different walks of life
addressing this issue," said Calman. "Providing housing and employment and all
those things are great, but if you don't have good health, all of those things
become secondary," said Shaun Belle of the Mt. Hope Housing Co., a Bronx-based
nonprofit agency serving more than 30,000 residents with housing and employment
issues.
In 1998, Newsday published a series of stories dealing with the
racial divide between whites and blacks in the delivery of medical services.
Ferrer, a candidate for mayor, said breaching linguistic and cultural
barriers was imperative to improving minority health. "The high incidents of
asthma, HIV-AIDS and other chronic illnesses, and the absence of appropriate
education, prevention and screening, mean people will get sicker," he said.
LOAD-DATE: November 10, 2000
