Immunization Newsbriefs (c) Copyright Information Inc.,
Bethesda, MD. Brought to you by the National Network for
Immunization Information (NNii). Visit NNii's new website at
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July 10, 2002
U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"How a City Aims to Give Minorities a Better Shot at Good Health
Care"
Wall Street Journal Online (www.wsj.com) (07/10/02); Martinez,
Barbara
The University of Pittsburgh is leading a campaign that aims to
bring better healthcare to minorities in Pennsylvania by 2010.
The initiative follows the release of a National Academy of
Sciences' Institute of Medicine report, which concluded--like
other studies before it--that a huge disparity exists between the
quality of medical treatment Caucasian patients receive and the
treatment given to minorities. Among other findings documented
in the 400-page report, minorities were not as likely to seek or
undergo bypass surgery or receive appropriate medications, even
though African Americans are at a higher risk for heart disease
than whites. These findings and those published in other reports
have elicited a strong response from the Department of Health,
which chose the year 2010 as the deadline for public-health
officials, researchers, and health systems to institute reforms
to eliminate these disparities. With help from Stephen Thomas,
director of the university's Center for Minority Health, the
university and Thomas have embarked on a crusade to generate
awareness among minorities about the seven major areas for which
they are most at risk: diabetes, cancer, infant mortality,
HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, immunization, and mental
illness. Last year, Dr. Thomas helped bring attention to the
fact that nearly 11,000 children would be suspended from school
within the next month because they had not been vaccinated
against measles. Volunteers then went into the most dangerous
projects in the city, going door-to-door to identify children who
needed shots, and the university's chancellor, Mark A.
Nordenberg, got local health systems and insurers to send out
mobile teams to administer the vaccines.
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