The Maryland Center for Health Equity (M-CHE) is pleased to host a group viewing of the 34th Annual Minority Health Conference: Constructing the Foundation for Health Equity. In addition to watchin the webcast, viewers at our location will be able to participate in the live question and answer session following the lecture.

Dr. Brian Smedley, Vice President and Director of the Health Policy Institute will be delivering the keynote lecture at the conference.

To RSVP to the event please call 301-405-8859. For more information please click the REGISTER button to your right.

At the University of Maryland Center for Health Equity (M-CHE), our first commitment is to improve the health of residents in the state of Maryland. In so doing, we produce best practice models that can be used across the nation as it works to achieve its Healthy People 2020 goal of health equity. Designated as a Research Center of Excellence on Minority Health Disparities by the NIH National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the center is charged with providing support for the development of broad, multidisciplinary research initiatives that position the university to become a national leader in the elimination of racial and ethnic minority disparities. Our approach integrates efforts to address broader social, economic and structural determinants of health.

For more information or to register for the event, click the REGISTER button to your right.

African-Americans who live in highly segregated counties are considerably more likely to die from lung cancer than those in counties that are less segregated, a new study has found. It found that lung cancer mortality rates, a ratio of deaths to a population, were about 20 percent higher for blacks who lived in the most segregated counties, than for blacks living in the least segregated counties.

Lung cancer is the top cause of preventable death in the United States. Blacks have the highest incidence of it and are also more likely to die from it. For every million black males, 860 will die from lung cancer, compared with 620 among every million white males. The rates were calculated over the period of the study, from 2003 to 2007.

Dr. David Chang, director of outcomes research at the University of California San Diego Department of Surgery, who wrote an accompanying editorial, said he hoped that the study would focus attention on the environmental factors involved in the stark disparities in health outcomes in the United States because they lend themselves to change through policy. Medical researchers tend to focus on factors that are harder to change, like the genetics and the behaviors of individuals.

“We don’t need drugs or genetic explanations to fix a lot of the health care problems we have,” he said.

Read more at The New York Times.

DivesityRx will hold the Eigth Annual National Conference on Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations on March 11-14, 2013 in Oakland, CA. This year's conference will focus on Achieving Equity in an Era of Information and Healthcare Transformation. The presentations will explore changes in policy, financing, information technology clinical practice and systems design can improve health care delivery--and how these transformations must accommodate the unique needs posed by cultural and linguistic diversity.

HPI Vice President and Director Dr. Brian Smedley will be one of the featured speakers at this event.

Date: March 11-14, 2013

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies today released a report documenting how neighborhood social and economic conditions in Baltimore powerfully shape racial and ethnic health inequities in the city.

The report, Place Matters for Health in Baltimore: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All, finds that residents’ place of residence is an important indicator of their health and health risks. Importantly, because of persistent racial and class segregation, place of residence is an especially important driver of the poorer health outcomes of the city’s non-white and low-income residents.

The report, prepared by the Joint Center and the Baltimore Place Matters team, Equity Matters, Inc., in conjunction with the Center for Human Needs at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia Network for Geospatial Health Research, was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities(NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the range of social, economic, and environmental conditions in Baltimore—particularly as it relates to the quality of housing and educational opportunities—and documents their relationship to the health status of the city’s residents.

Read more at KTRE-TV.

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) today joined U.S. Congressman Elijah Cummings and members of The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies at a press conference about the Center’s report detailing health inequities among different Baltimore communities.   The report documented a nearly 30-year difference in life expectancy between minority, low-income neighborhoods and wealthy, more affluent neighborhoods.

The study was conducted by the Joint Center with a grant from the National Institutes of Minority Health and Health Disparities.  In the Affordable Care Act, Senator Cardin authored the provision elevating the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities to an Institute and establishing the Offices of Minority Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“This landmark report by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies calls attention to the significant health inequities in Baltimore’s neighborhoods,” said Senator Cardin. “These gaps, such as the 30-year difference in life expectancy documented in the report, are unacceptable and preventable.    As the report shows, health disparities are linked to inequitable social and economic conditions in Baltimore, and we can and must take steps to eliminate them.  As a Senator with a long-standing record of working to promote health equity, including my legislation establishing Offices of Minority Health throughout HHS and elevating NIH’s National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities to an Institute, I welcome this study as another tool to help us move forward to ensure that every American has an opportunity to live a healthy life.”

Read more at the Office of Senator Ben Cardin.

The place where 3-year-old Antoine Graves grows into adulthood is likely to determine whether he lives to be very old or dies young, according to a new study.

According to a new report entitled Place Matters for Health in Baltimore: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All, which contains research on health inequities in the city, researchers have concluded, yet again, that health disparities vary by neighborhood. The research shows that disproportionately it is people of color and the poor who live in neighborhoods that are likely to make them sick. The report was produced by the Washington D.C.-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank that specializes in issues of interest to African Americans and Equity Matters, Inc.

“Forty to 70 percent of the reason people get sick is because of where they live, work and play,” said Michael Scott, chief equity officer and co-founder of Equity Matters, Inc. “The health disparities in Baltimore are caused by the institutional racism embedded in everything from housing to education.”

According to the report, the number of years a person is expected to live varied as much as 30 years, depending on whether they lived in a poor or wealthy neighborhood. The study was conducted between 2005 and 2009 and spanned the city. According to the data, the residents with the city’s highest life expectancy—81 to 86 years—live in the Inner Harbor/Federal Hill and Greater Roland Park Poplar areas. The areas with the lowest life expectancy include the Greenmont, Druid Hill and Westport neighborhoods, where people are not expected to live past 63 years old, the report shows.

Read more at The Afro.

Why do some people get sicker and die sooner than others? The answer involves more than our genes, behaviors and medical care, according to a new study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the advocacy group Equity Inc. It turns out that where we live is often the strongest predictor of our well-being, and that disparities along racial and class lines in health outcomes and access to care mirror the inequities in every other aspect of people's lives.

The report's findings confirm earlier studies that have shown persistently large gaps in health outcomes between different areas of the country, the state and even parts of the same city. In Baltimore, for example, residents of poor, largely African-American communities are known to suffer far higher rates of infant and child mortality, premature death and chronic illness than those of affluent, largely white neighborhoods elsewhere in the city.

Average life expectancy for affluent, white residents in Roland Park, for example, is nearly 30 years longer than for poor, African-American residents in Upton/Druid Heights. Meanwhile, the infant mortality rate among black women in some city neighborhoods is three or four times the state average. By almost any measure — including hospital visits for chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and asthma — place matters even more than access to care as the most important determinant of people's health and well-being.

Recognizing the urgency of producing better health outcomes for poor and minority residents, Maryland has encouraged the creation of so-called health enterprise zones in areas around the state where the disparities are greatest. The enterprise zones would offer tax incentives for doctors, hospitals, business groups, churches and community associations to form public-private partnerships that provide additional medical and support services to underserved communities.

Read more at The Baltimore Sun.

Researchers from the Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Human Needs have released the last three studies of an eight-part collaborative project with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute and the Virginia Network for Geospatial Health Research.

These studies assessed population health inequities and related social and economic conditions in urban and rural communities across the United States. Working alongside the project partners were eight “Place Matters” teams consisting of individuals who work and live in each of the communities studied.

The new reports address conditions in Oakland in Alameda County, Calif.; Boston, Mass.; and South Delta, Miss. Previously released reports addressed conditions in San Joaquin Valley, Calif.; Orleans Parish, La.; Cook County, Ill.; Bernalillo County, N.M.; and Baltimore, Md.

Read more at Health Canal.

HPI Director Dr. Brian Smedley delivers the keynote address at the Massachusetts Public Health Association 2012 Annual Conference in Westborough, Massachusetts.