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APRIL IS NATIONAL MINORITY HEALTH MONTH |
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The goals of the National Minority Health Month Group are to build
public/private partnerships, foster cultural competency among health
care providers, encourage health education and training, and expand
the use of state-of-the-art technology, and to provide leadership in
the consistent, comparable, and predictable monitoring and reporting
of the health status of all vulnerable populations, including but not
limited to Blacks and African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native
Americans, Pacific Islanders, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. |
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| EXAMPLES
OF IMPORTANT DISPARITIES |
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HHS has selected six focus areas in which racial and ethnic minorities
experience serious disparities in health access and outcomes.
These six health areas were selected for emphasis because they
reflect areas of disparity that are known to affect multiple racial
and ethnic minority groups at all life stages: |
Infant Mortality |
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African-American, American Indian, and Puerto Rican infants have
higher death rates than white infants. In 2000, the black-to-white
ratio in infant mortality was 2.5 (up from 2.4 in 1998). This widening
disparity between black and white infants is a trend that has
persisted over the last two decades. |
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Cancer Screening and Management |
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African-American women are more than twice as likely to die of
cervical cancer as are white women and are more likely to die of
breast cancer than are women of any other racial or ethnic group. |
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Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) |
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Heart disease and stroke are the leading causes of death for all
racial and ethnic groups in the United States. In 2000, rates of death
from diseases of the heart were 29 percent higher among
African-American adults than among white adults, and death rates from
stroke were 40 percent higher. |
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Diabetes |
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In 2000, American Indians and Alaska Natives were 2.6 times more
likely to have diagnosed diabetes compared with non-Hispanic Whites,
African Americans were 2.0 times more likely, and Hispanics were 1.9
times more likely. |
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HIV Infection/AIDS |
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Although African Americans and Hispanics represented only 26 percent
of the U.S. population in 2001, they accounted for 66 percent of adult
AIDS cases and 82 percent of pediatric AIDS cases reported in the
first half of that year. |
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Immunizations |
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In 2001, Hispanics and African Americans aged 65 and older were less
likely than Non-Hispanic whites to report having received influenza
and pneumococcal vaccines. |
