This policy brief identifies some of the policy strategies that are being studied and implemented in communities across the country. Prepared by Bryant Cameron Webb, a rising leader in medicine and health policy, we expect that this brief will be useful for policymakers, public health practitioners, community organizations, researchers, and others committed to improving the health of people of color and eliminating health inequities. This analysis furthers the Joint Center’s long history of work to identify solutions to some of our nation’s most pressing policy issues, and ensure that people of color can continue to contribute to the fullest extent to the rich social, economic, and political life of the nation.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute will hold its 2012 PLACE MATTERS National Health Equity Conference, entitled Models of Action, Innovation, and Collaboration, on September 4 and 5, 2012 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, DC.

Featured speakers include:

• Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PolicyLink
• Dr. Howard Frumkin, Dean and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington School of Public Health
• Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone
• Kathy Lim Ko, President and CEO, Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum

Registration is now open! Please click the REGISTER button in the box to the right for registration information. For more conference information including logistics and a draft agenda, view our PLACE MATTERS National Conference 2012 page.  

Questions? Please contact the Health Policy Institute.

The National Council of Family Relations will hold its 74th Annual Conference, Families and Health, from October 31 to November 2, 2012 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. HPI's Dr. Brian Smedley will speak on Building Stronger Communities for Better Health: Moving from Science to Policy and Practice at a session on Friday, November 2.

For more information, visit the National Council on Family Relations.

WASHINGTON, DC--This week marks the second anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).  It’s also the week that oral arguments begin before the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of the law.  At minimum, the court will consider whether the law’s requirement that individuals who can afford health insurance coverage should carry it exceeds federal authority to regulate interstate commerce, and whether the law’s provisions to expand the Medicaid program are “coercive” to states.  Years of effort to create legislation that will expand insurance coverage, contain health care costs, and improve the quality of health care hang in the balance, and all Americans will ultimately be affected by how the high court rules.

Racial and ethnic minority Americans have an enormous stake in the law and Supreme Court’s deliberations.  Not only do many minorities face higher rates of disease, disability, and premature death than whites, they also face greater barriers to accessing high-quality health care.  These problems, however, should trouble all Americans:  given the nation’s significant demographic shifts (over half of all babies currently born in the U.S. are non-white, and by 2042 one of every two people living in the U.S. will be a person of color), the health of minorities increasingly defines the health of the nation.

Today the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies releases a policy brief, “Health Reform at the Crossroads: Will the Affordable Care Act Help Eliminate Health Inequities?” This policy brief reviews the health status of minority Americans and briefly reviews the complex factors that are associated with health inequities among majority and minority groups.

 Drawing upon research and policy analysis that the Joint Center conducted shortly after the law’s passage (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010:  Advancing Health Equity for Racially and Ethnically Diverse Populations, it assesses the potential of the ACA to address health inequities.  We find that the law has tremendous potential to significantly narrow health inequities, a goal that is squarely in the national interest.  Dozens of the provisions within the law address long-standing health and health care needs, going well beyond the controversial individual responsibility requirement and Medicaid expansion.  The Supreme Court, as well as national policymakers and their constituents, should carefully consider these issues as they weigh the ACA’s merits.

This week marks the second anniversary of the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA).  It’s also the week that oral arguments begin before the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of the law.  At minimum, the court will consider whether the law’s requirement that individuals who can afford health insurance coverage should carry it exceeds federal authority to regulate interstate commerce, and whether the law’s provisions to expand the Medicaid program are “coercive” to states.  Years of effort to create legislation that will expand insurance coverage, contain health care costs, and improve the quality of health care hang in the balance, and all Americans will ultimately be affected by how the high court rules.

The Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions is organizing the International Conference on Health in the African Diaspora - ICHAD 2012.  The conference will be held this summer - July 4-8,2012 - at the Renaissance Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland.

Today there are nearly 160 million descendants of the Transatlantic Slave Trade living in the Western Hemisphere.  The conference will explore how they are doing today and what can be done to improve their health.  ICHAD 2012 is a multidisciplinary conference, with more presentations focusing on more than a dozen countries, including Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Honduras, Jamaica, Peru, and the United States.

To learn more about the conference, click here.

Connections 2012: Because Results Matter is Healthcare Georgia Foundation's fifth statewide convening of grantees, partners, and community leaders.  The conference will feature interactive sessions and networking opprotunities with nonprofit health organizations dedicated to improving health outcomes.  Participants will have the opportunity to learn from the successes and challenges of other organizations.  The keynote address will be given by Dr. Brian Smedley of the Joint Center's Health Policy Institute.

To learn more information or to register, click here.

Dr. Jermane Bond of the Health Policy Institute will make a Grand Rounds presentation entitled "The Other 'P-Value': Paternal Involvement in Pregnancy Outcomes" at the University of Nebraska Medical Center on Wednesday, April 18, 2012. The presentation will review racial and ethnic disparities in pregnancy outcomes, describe historical and contemporary aspects of paternal involvement, and identify pathways to improve paternal involvement in pregnancy outcomes.

A live stream of the presentation will be available at http://hog.unmc.edu:8080/ramgen/broadcast/cophgrlive.rm. RealPlayer will be needed for viewing.

More information on the presentation can be found at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

On March 21, 2012 Dr. Brian Smedley will moderate a webinar sponsored by Communities Joined in Action, focusing on health inequities.  Racial and ethnic health inequities persist from the cradle to the grave, in the form of higher rates of infant mortality, disease and disability, and premature mortality for many communities of color relative to national averages.The causes of these inequities are complex, but are associated with differences in socioeconomic status, environmental risks and exposures, occupational exposures, health behaviors, and access to health care.At their core, many of these factors can be traced to differences in neighborhood and work environments that are the result of residential segregation and other structural inequalities.

This presentation explores how neighborhood and community contexts directly and indirectly shape health and contribute to health inequities as a result of racial and ethnic residential segregation.The presentation will also feature a discussion of policy strategies that de-concentrate poverty and increase investments in health-enhancing resources in communities that suffer from disinvestment.

Objectives:
1. Participants should be able to identify social and economic conditions that shape health and health inequities.
2. Participants should be able to identify why residential segregation is a root cause of these inequities.
3. Participants should be able to identify at least three policy strategies (i.e., land use) that can address these inequities.

For more information about the webinar visit the Communities Joined in Action website, here.

Where you live can be an indicator of how long you'll live, according to a new study on San Joaquin Valley health.

Published by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, the report found that in counties spanning from Tulare to Stanislaus, life expectancy varied markedly by ZIP code. In the most extreme cases, there was as much as a 21-year difference between neighborhoods.

“It doesn’t have to do with the attributes of the individuals in a community, but often the conditions they find themselves living in,” Brian Smedley, Vice President and Director of the center’s Health Policy Institute, said of the wide swing in life expectancy across the valley. “Some people in neighborhoods that enjoy the best and worst health are just a few miles apart.”

Read more at California Watch.