WASHINGTON—Health disparities are creating economic burdens for families, communities and the nation’s health care system. Across the country, infant mortality and chronic diseases continue to affect people of color at rates far higher than those for whites.

In recent years, the focus has increased on the impact of disparities on minority communities, with public officials, community activists, civic leaders and health care experts proposing ways to improve access to medical care and raise awareness of positive benefits of preventive care. But health experts say the economic toll of health disparities and substantial costs associated with lost productivity are being overlooked. 

“Racial and ethnic groups have higher incidences of diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer, et cetera,” says Brian D. Smedley, vice president and director of the Health Policy Institute at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. “That prevalence [of chronic diseases] comes with a price tag in terms of excess direct medical costs, nearly $230 billion over a four-year period that we studied.”

Read more at americaswire.org.

The Howard University Initiative on Democracy, Markets, Communication, and Technology will hold a one-day symposium on disparities in U.S. healthcare on Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at the Blackburn University Center in Washington, DC. Dr. Brian Smedley of the Health Policy Institute will be a panelist at this event.

For more information, visit Howard University.

Grantmakers in Health will hold its 2012 annual meeting on health philanthropy, entitled Health and Equity for all, from March 7 through March 9 in Baltimore, Maryland. This event will examine and discuss philanthropy's role in moving the nation's health agenda forward. Dr. Brian Smedley of the Health Policy Institute will headline the National Alliance for Health Equity breakfast on Thursday, March 8 from 7 to 8:30 AM.

For more information on the meeting, please visit Grantmakers in Health.

WASHINGTON, DC – The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and San Joaquin Valley PLACE MATTERS team today released a report, “Place Matters for Health in the San Joaquin Valley: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All,”  that provides a comprehensive analysis of the range of social, economic, and environmental conditions in communities in California’s San Joaquin Valley (Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, and Tulare Counties) and documents their relationship to the health status of valley residents.

The study, supported by a grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) of the National Institutes of Health, finds that social, economic, and environmental conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficult for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives.  The study shows that the rate of premature deaths in the lowest-income zip codes of the San Joaquin Valley is nearly twice that of those in the highest-income zip codes.  In addition, the study found that life expectancy varies by as much as 21 years in the San Joaquin Valley depending on zip code—in the zip codes with lowest life expectancy, people can live to be only about 69 years or less, while people can live to be 90 years or more in zip codes with the highest life expectancy.  Zip codes with the lowest life expectancy tend to have a higher percentage of Hispanic and low-income residents.

The report was released at the opening of the PLACE MATTERS: Action Lab, a convening of over 80 health experts and community leaders from across the nation. Conference participants will learn about ongoing initiatives to address the policy and environmental determinants of racial/ethnic and other group differences in health and well-being.

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Summaries of the report are available in English and in Spanish. Download:

• Full report
• Spanish-language summary
• English-language summary
• VCU Center On Human Needs

The report provides a comprehensive analysis of how neighborhood differences in a range of social, economic and environmmental conditions are linked to health outcomes in the San Joaquin Valley. It finds that the conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficut for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives.

This is a summary. The full report is here.

The report provides a comprehensive analysis of how neighborhood differences in a range of social, economic and environmmental conditions are linked to health outcomes in the San Joaquin Valley. It finds that the conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficut for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives.

This is a Spanish language summary. The full report is here.

The report provides a comprehensive analysis of how neighborhood differences in a range of social, economic and environmmental conditions are linked to health outcomes in the San Joaquin Valley. It finds that the conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficut for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives.

A summary document is also available in English or Spanish.

In a study released this week, two Manhattan Institute researchers heralded the “end of the segregated century.” Harvard professor Edward Glaeser and Duke professor Jacob Vigdor showed that African American segregation levels have now declined to their lowest point since 1920, just after the beginning of the “Great Migration” of rural sharecroppers from the South to Northern industrial metropolitan regions.

From 2010 Census data, professors Glaeser and Vigdor calculate changes in what sociologists term “dissimilarity indices.” They find a national dissimilarity (or segregation) rate of about 55 percent for African Americans—in other words, “only” 55 percent of African Americans would now have to move to neighborhoods with more non-blacks in order to evenly distribute the black population throughout all neighborhoods in their metropolitan areas. This is a substantial decline from the segregation level of about 80 percent in 1970.

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Another recent study of census data published by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies finds that over 20 percent of all African Americans now live in “high poverty” neighborhoods, unchanged from 2000. More than 40 percent of poor African Americans now live in high-poverty neighborhoods, compared to 15 percent of poor whites who live in such neighborhoods. Poor blacks are therefore nearly three times as likely to be “truly disadvantaged” as poor whites. (The Joint Center defines a “high poverty” neighborhood as one where 30 percent or more of the residents have incomes below the poverty line, but this definition can be misleading: The poverty line is very low, and neighborhoods with poverty rates of greater than 30 percent also inevitably house large numbers of residents whose incomes are barely above the poverty line, and whom most would also consider to be severely economically disadvantaged.)


Read more at the Economic Policy Institute.