Just in case you missed it, here’s some of the latest health disparities news, posts and reports from this past week.
Journalist’s Resource: Health disparities: Race and asthma – “In the United States, racial minorities tend to experience poorer health compared to their white counterparts. For example, the death rate for all cancers is 30% higher for African Americans than it is for whites, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hispanics are almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to die from diabetes. The prevalence of asthma also differs by race. Studies consistently demonstrate that asthma – a chronic lung disease that affects about 1 in 12 people — is more likely to affect blacks than whites and is less common among Hispanics.”
CT Post: Health insurance signups near 10 million in midyear report – “About 9.9 million people have signed up and paid for health insurance under President Barack Obama’s health care law, the administration said Tuesday, a slight dip from a previous count but on track toward the administration’s year-end goal of 9.1 million. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said that 84 percent of those, or more than 8.3 million, were receiving tax subsidies to help with the cost. A Supreme Court decision earlier this summer upheld insurance subsidies in all 50 states, a major victory for the White House.”
NPR: A Physician Asks: Is Being Black Bad For Your Health? – “As a medical student, Damon Tweedy noticed that many of the diseases he learned about in class were more prevalent among black people than white people, and that the black patients often fared worse than their white counterparts. Tweedy, now a psychiatrist and the author of the memoir Black Man in a White Coat, theorizes that those differences spring from the fact that many black patients feel shut out and distrustful of a health care system that has a history of mistreating them.”
WNPR: How to Get the Best Medical Care – “Navigating our healthcare system is frustrating and time-consuming enough when you’re healthy. But what if you get a serious diagnosis? You’ll probably have to deal with multiple doctors’ offices and their front-desk staffs, a hospital or clinic that may not be familiar, and a sudden deluge of paperwork, phone calls, and appointments. The chances for confusion and miscommunication multiply all along the chain — and this can lead to problems ranging from annoying clerical mistakes to serious medical errors.”
Jackson Free Press: Report: State Health Disparities Persist – “When it comes to health, huge disparities exist between whites and nonwhites, men and women, and rich and poor in Mississippi. The Mississippi State Department of Health’s annual report on health disparities and inequalities highlights these in its latest report. African Americans, who make up 37 percent of Mississippi’s population, have the highest mortality rate due to heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, renal disease, HIV/AIDS, cancer, unintentional mortality and homicide. Blacks also have the highest infant mortality rate, a higher prevalence of childhood asthma, teen pregnancy and were the least likely group to have health insurance, the report found.”
About Sofia Chandler Follow @sncr
Sofia Chandler is a Program Director at the Society for New Communications Research and has worked 7+ years in the digital communications field. Prior to joining the Society for New Communications Research, Gina worked at re: Imagine group, where she where she led media and blogger outreach and agency research.