Title
Declaring April National Minority Health Month and recognizing the Office of Minority Health for its efforts towards health parity.
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WHEREAS, Health inequities adversely affect groups of people who have systematically experienced greater obstacles to health due to language/cultural barriers, gender identity, lack of preventative care and health insurance resources, geographic location, fear of deportation as well as a myriad of other issues or characteristics historically linked to discrimination and/or exclusion. Such disparities are often linked to social, economic or environmental disadvantages, conditions categorized as social determinants of health, such as lack of access to good jobs, unsafe neighborhoods and affordable transportation options; and
WHEREAS, According to national statistics, found in both Fact Sheet: Health Disparities by Race and Ethnicity: Many Groups Suffer from Lack of Health Coverage and Preventable Chronic Illnesses (Lesley Russell, December 2010) and Office of Minority Health data African Americans have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease than other groups. Nearly 15 percent of African Americans have diabetes while a smaller percentage of Hispanics have higher rates of end-stage renal disease, caused by diabetes, and are 50 percent more likely to die from it as non-Hispanic whites. American Indian and Alaska Native adults were 2.1 times as likely as white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes and almost twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to die from it; and
WHEREAS, African Americans experience higher incidence and mortality rates from many cancers that are amenable to early diagnosis and treatment. Hispanic women contract cervical cancer at twice the rate of white women and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are 30 percent more likely to be diagnosed with cancer compared to non-Hispanic whites. When compared to other racial and ethnic groups, American Indian and Alaska Nat...
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