CoverMe Foundation to assist uninsured African-Americans find health insurance
July 24, 2008
- The CoverMe Foundation, a national non-profit organization, has announced it will offer a free comprehensive program that helps locate health care coverage available to the uninsured and underserved groups such as the elderly, disabled and pregnant women.
The CoverMe Foundation wants to help improve the quality of life for all Americans nationwide, particularly African-Americans.
The number of uninsured African-Americans is approaching crisis stage. Of the approximately 35.5 million African-Americans in the U.S., more than seven million, or about 20 percent, are uninsured, compared to the 11 percent of non-Hispanic whites who lack health coverage. Of those seven million uninsured African-Americans, 1.6 million are children, accounting for one out of every seven African-American children.
“The number of underinsured and uninsured African Americans is very disturbing,” said Alec Shea, president of The CoverMe Foundation. “We think that everyone in the United States should have access to healthcare coverage and services regardless of race and economic status. Our goal is to also make the application process as easy as possible for African Americans without health care insurance with our toll-free number and Web site.”
The CoverMe Foundation’s goal for long-term health for African Americans also includes information on prescription assistance programs and medical treatment programs.
“The comprehensive assistance is at the heart of the foundation’s work in trying to close the health care gap between America’s 47 million uninsured and the health care resources that are available to them,” Shea added. “We work hard to make the difference, to always be there for our communities.”
The CoverMe Foundation is funded by a $2.5 million grant from The WellPoint Foundation Inc., which supports innovative programs that help cover the uninsured.
“We are proud to support the The CoverMe Foundation, an organization that is dedicated to improving the health care of our communities and working with uninsured individuals and their families to actually get them insured,” said Caz Matthews, president of The WellPoint Foundation Inc.
For more information on The CoverMe Foundation and its services, or if you are an organization or individual interested in partnering with CMF in its efforts to help America’s uninsured population, please call 1 (877) NSUREME-1 or visit the Web site at http://www.covermefoundation.org.
Cancer researchers call for ethnicity to be taken into account
July 21, 2008
Imperial College London
- Breast cancer research needs to investigate how a person’s ethnicity influences their response to treatment and its outcome, according to a new Comment piece in 18 July’s Lancet by researchers from Imperial College London.
Emerging evidence suggests that particular drugs may benefit people from one ethnic group more than others, because of differences in their genetic makeup. However, most key trials looking at treatments for breast cancer have been carried out in predominantly white populations in Europe, North America and Australasia.
Other populations might not respond to a drug in the same way as the white populations in these trials, argue the researchers writing today. They suggest that clinical trials should record participants’ ethnicity and analyse whether there are differences in how patients from particular ethnic groups respond to a particular therapy.
Race may play role in health care experience
July 21, 2008
Lex Alexander, News & Record
- Comparing the way people of different races and incomes get prescriptions may sound like an obscure bit of research.
But in Greensboro, that study has been a pilot program for a National Institutes of Health research project that will distribute tens of millions of dollars nationwide.
That larger study seeks to identify how factors such as race, sex, income, insurance status and language may interfere with people getting the health care they need. Such factors are thought to contribute to higher disease and death rates among some minority groups.
The agency wants researchers to find ways to improve communication with patients and spread those methods quickly, said Dr. Sam Cykert , chief of the internal medicine teaching program at Moses Cone Hospital.
Sixth Annual Congressional Tri-Caucus Minority Health Summit Examines Strategies to Reduce Health Disparities in Communities of Color
July 19, 2008
- The Sixth Annual Congressional Tri- Caucus Health Summit convened today in Houston, TX with members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) meeting with local minority health coalitions and regional and national public health officials and experts to examine strategies to address health and health care disparities among communities of color. The Congressional Tri-Caucus Health Summit will seek to build consensus on policies that address health disparities, to develop strategies for advocacy at the federal level, and to engage these communities in legislative action and outreach.
Despite stereotypes depicting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as “model minorities” who seldom face social ills, recent data shows that there are wide disparities in health coverage when compared to other racial and ethnic groups. From 2004 to 2006, 24 percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, and 31 percent of Korean Americans were uninsured. Cancer is the leading cause of death among Asians, yet recent data also show that Asian Medicare beneficiaries were less likely than whites to receive cancer screenings services. Also, Asian Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with diabetes were less likely to receive diabetic services across all age, sex, and socioeconomic groups, even though diabetes is more prevalent among Asians than whites and represents the fifth leading cause of death among Asians.
“Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders face significant obstacles to obtaining quality healthcare and have higher rates of certain preventable diseases, such as hepatitis B and tuberculosis, than the general population,” said Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Chair of CAPAC. “Our communities face cultural and linguistic barriers, and difficulty accessing health insurance. Approximately one-third of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders live in linguistic isolation, 21% are uninsured, and even more are underinsured. I will continue to work with my colleagues to pass H.R. 3014, the Tri-Caucus Health Equity and Accountability Act, to address these disparities.”
Despite recent gains in the health field, disparities related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status remain prevalent. For example, more than 70% of Latinos across the country are considered overweight or obese, including 25% of Latino children. Despite recent gains in the health field, disparities related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status remain prevalent. For Hispanic women, the incidence of cervical cancer is two and half times higher than the rate of White women.
“Latinos are disproportionately affected by heart disease, cancer and diabetes, and as a result we must educate our community of the necessary health precautions. It all starts by providing culturally and linguistically appropriate health care,” said Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (D-CA), Chair of the CHC Task Force on Health and the Environment. “The effort of the Tri-Caucus sends a clear message that there is power in our numbers. I look forward to bringing the ideas and innovative methods we learned today back to Congress.”
According to the Office of Minority Health, minority and low-income populations have a disproportionate burden of death and disability from cardiovascular disease. African Americans have the highest rate of high blood pressure of all groups and tend to develop it younger than others. HIV/AIDS has had a devastating impact on minority communities. Racial and ethnic minorities accounted for almost 70 percent of the newly diagnosed cases of HIV and AIDS in 2002, and more than 90 percent of babies born with HIV belong to minority groups. In the African American community, HIV/AIDS has become an epidemic. African Americans accounted for more than 54 percent of HIV/AIDS diagnoses in 2002, and African Americans are ten times more likely to die of AIDS than Whites.
“Myriad studies confirm that African Americans have been and continue to be disproportionately and detrimentally affected by all of the health inequities that exist throughout the nation’s health care system,” said Congresswoman Donna Christensen, Chair of the CBC Health Braintrust. “All of our nation’s most pressing health and health care challenges, from HIV/AIDS to cancer; from diabetes to overweight and obesity; from infant and maternal mortality to uninsurance; and from poor mental and dental health to heart disease, leave African Americans disproportionately more likely than whites to be un- and under-insured, in poorer health, and more likely to prematurely die from preventable causes during their most productive life years.” Concluded Congresswoman Christensen, who also is the only African-American physician currently serving in Congress, “The pervasiveness of these health disparities, which affect the health, well being and thus life opportunities of all people of color, are what have and will continue to inspire the Tri-Caucus to work together from common ground toward the common goal of health equity.”
“Universal health care is the single most important civil rights issue of our time and we refuse to accept second class health care for our most vulnerable citizens,” said Congressman John Conyers, Dean of the CBC. “It is clear that minority health disparities are the result of a health care system that favors the affluent and the healthy. I strongly believe that the only way to eliminate health disparities is to establish a system of universal health care that is affordable, accessible and high-quality for all Americans. For these reasons, it is essential that the Congressional Tri-Caucus speak with one voice on these vital issues.”
The Sixth Annual Congressional Tri-Caucus Minority Health Summit is being organized by the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, the Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations, the Houston Asian American Health Coalition, the Houston African American Health Coalition, the Houston Hispanic Health Coalition, the Houston Native American Coalition, the Center for Research on Minority Health at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, American Public Health Association, Families USA, the Kellogg Health Scholars Program at the Center for Advancement in Health, the National Center for Primary Care at Morehouse School of Medicine, and Out of Many, One. Sponsors of the event include the American Legacy Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Sanofi-aventis, Sanofi Pasteur, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and US Asian Wire.
Genetic Variation Raises HIV Risk in People of African Descent
July 16, 2008
- A genetic variation that may have protected people of African descent against a pandemic of malaria long ago now appears to increase their susceptibility to HIV infection, a report published this week shows.
The variation, described in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, is one of the first genetic risk factors for HIV to be identified only in those of African descent, and puts a spotlight on the differences in our genetic makeup that play a critical role in susceptibility to HIV-AIDS.
In a population of 1,266 HIV-positive U.S. military personnel and 2,000 non-infected healthy personnel, researchers studied the gene that expresses Duffy antigen receptor. This molecule on the surface of red blood cells serves as the docking site for the malaria species Plasmodium vivax.
“Subjects who have a genetic variation do not express Duffy antigen receptor and are known to be less likely to contract malaria vivax,” said Sunil K. Ahuja, M.D., professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and a senior lead author of the study. “But now it turns out having this variation is a double-edged sword.”
“Duffy antigen influences levels of inflammatory and anti-HIV blood factors called chemokines,” noted Weijing He, M.D., senior post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Ahuja’s laboratory and first author of the paper. “Other as yet undefined host factors likely exert population-specific effects on HIV-AIDS, such that individuals of European or African descent are likely to have distinct host factors that affect their respective susceptibilities to HIV and AIDS.”
HIV affects 25 million people in sub-Saharan Africa today, an HIV burden greater than any other region of the world. Sexual behavior and other social factors do not fully explain the large discrepancy in HIV prevalence compared to populations worldwide, the authors note.
“In sub-Saharan Africa, the vast majority of people do not express Duffy on their red blood cells,” said senior lead author Robin A. Weiss, Ph.D., of University College London. “This is one of the first genetic factors particularly common in Africans that has been shown to confer more susceptibility to HIV.”
Paradoxically, the research team noted that once people become infected, the Duffy-deficient variation actually prolongs survival. Again, this was noted in the U.S. military personnel population.
“This is a clinical cohort of people who have been followed for nearly 25 years,” said a senior lead author, Matthew J. Dolan, M.D., of the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program, Uniformed Services University, in Bethesda, Md.
“The advantage is we have long-term follow-up, the population is ethnically balanced between European and African Americans, and everyone has had the same employer, health care and HIV medication access.”
Drs. Ahuja, He and Dolan; Hemant Kulkarni, M.D.; and other co-authors have published a series of papers on other genetic variations that play a role in HIV-AIDS susceptibility.
“The Duffy finding is another valuable piece in the puzzle of HIV-AIDS genetics,” Dr. Ahuja said.
Dr. Ahuja is a professor of medicine, microbiology, immunology and biochemistry at The University of Texas Health Science Center and director of the Veterans Administration Research Center for AIDS and HIV-1 Infection in the South Texas Veterans Health Care System. Drs. He and Kulkarni are members of the HIV/AIDS Center.
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