April is National Minority Health Month. Please join the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs as we raise awareness of health issues impacting minority populations in the United States.
 

Brief History

National Negro Health Week was established in April 1915 at the Tuskegee Institute by Booker T. Washington in an effort to improve the health status of minority populations.  With support from the National Public Health Service and backing from churches, civic clubs, businesses, and minority health professionals, this effort was sustained over many decades and grew into a national presence.

 In April of 2001, Minority Health Communications and its partners launched National Minority Health Month (NMHM) and the National Minority Health Month Foundation with the intent of eliminating health disparities, as well as, improving the health status of racial and ethnic minorities.  This was done in support of Healthy People 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ and the U.S. Surgeon General’s health promotion and disease prevention initiative.        

Focus Areas

Focus areas of National Minority Health Month and the National Minority Health Month Foundation include, but are not limited to, infant mortality, cancer screening and prevention, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV infection/ AIDS, and immunizations.

These focus areas were selected because racial and ethnic minorities experience serious disparities in health access and outcomes in comparison to the majority population. Furthermore, these six health areas are known to affect multiple racial and ethnic minority groups at all stages of life.

For More information on National Minority Health Month, please visit www.NMHM.org

  

  
National Minority Health  Month Events
 
Event 1
  
Date:   April 4, 2008    
Time:  12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.        
Location: Room F-118                          
  
Title:  “HIV/ AIDS and the African-American Community”      
  
Description:  The Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs invites NEOUCOM/NEOUCOP faculty, staff, and students to a lunchtime lecture with Ms. Janaris Alston, Executive Director of Violet’s Cupboard. Ms. Alston will discuss HIV/AIDS in the African-American community as well as services offered by her non-profit agency, Violet’s Cupboard.  Lunch will be provided.
 
If you are interested in attending this session, please RSVP by Wednesday April 2, 2008.  You can do so by contacting Jonathan Bentley at (330) 325-6223 or jbentley@neoucom.edu.  
  
  
Event 2
  
Date: April 9, 2008                  
Time: 12:00 p.m.-1:00p.m.                     
Location: Olson Auditorium 
  
Title: “Disparities in Health Among Racial and Ethnic Groups: Current Trends and Promising Programs” 
  
Description:  The Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs invites all NEOUCOM faculty, staff, and students to a lunchtime lecture with Elizabeth Piatt, Ph. D.  Dr. Piatt will highlight current race and class disparities in mental and physical health, as well as focus on model programs aimed at addressing these disparities. Healthy snacks will be provided.  
  
  
Event 3
  
Date: April 17, 2008                 
Time: 12:00 p.m.-1:00p.m.                     
Location: Olson Auditorium 
  
Title: “Unnatural Causes: Episode 1” 
  
Description:  Episode 1-“In Sickness and in Wealth”- 56 min.
What are the connections between healthy bodies, healthy bank accounts and skin color? Our opening episode travels to Louisville, Kentucky, not to explore whether medical care cures us but to see why we get sick in the first place, and why patterns of health and illness reflect underlying patterns of class and racial inequities.    
         -Source: www.unnaturalcauses.org   
  
  
Event 4
  
Date: April 24, 2008                 
Time: 12:00 p.m.-1:00p.m.                     
Location: Room E-10, Liebelt Lecture Hall 
  
Title: “Unnatural Causes: Episodes 2 & 3” 
  
Description: Episode 2-“When the Bough Breaks” -29 min.   The number of infants who die before their first birthday is much higher in the U.S. than in other countries. For African-Americans, the rate is nearly twice as high as for Caucasian Americans. Even well-educated African-American women have birth outcomes worse than Caucasian women who haven't finished high school. Why?
  
Description: Episode 3- “Becoming American” -29 min. 
Recent Mexican immigrants, although poorer, tend to be healthier than the average American. They have lower rates of death, heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses, despite being less educated, earning less and having the stress of adapting to a new country and a new language. In research circles, this is the Latino paradox.      
           -Source: www.unnaturalcauses.org 

  

                    

National Minority Health Month on TV

“Unnatural Causes” is a medical detective story out to solve the mystery of what’s stalking and killing us before our time, especially those of us who are less affluent and darker skinned. The investigators — epidemiologists, biologists, doctors and health workers — keep peeling back the onion, broadening our inquiry beyond immediate, physical causes of death to the deeper, underlying causes that lurk in our neighborhoods, our jobs and even back in history.  The perpetrators, of course, aren’t individuals but rather social and institutional forces that have made ours one of the most unequal—and unhealthy—nations in the industrialized world. These are not impulsive crimes of passion.  These are slow deaths that are the result of a lifetime of grinding wears and tear, thwarted ambition, segregation, and neglect.
 
But this is also a story of hope and possibility, of communities organizing to gain control over their destinies—and their health.  The good news is that if our bad health results in part from policy decisions that we as a society have made, then we can make other decisions. Some other countries already have.
 
The centerpiece of the series is an hour-long opening episode that explores some of the biggest health secrets of all: how health and longevity are correlated with socioeconomic status, how people of color face an additional burden and how solutions lie not in more pills or better genes, but in fairer social policies. The main hour is supported by six additional half-hour stories set in different racial and ethnic communities. Each deepens our understanding of the root causes of disease, illuminating the pathways by which social conditions affect physiology and bringing viewers face to face with innovative initiatives for health equity.

-Source: www.pbs.org

 

For more information, please visit www.unnaturalcauses.org.