The speaker’s at today’s NIH Summit on the Science of Health Disparities were all dynamic and knowledgeable. Governor Howard Dean MD, Chairman, Democratic National Committee started off the day with a rousing speech on the future of health care in the US. He was followed by several panelists speaking on the intersection of science, policy and practice. The lunch keynote speaker, Elijah Cummings, United States Congress, Washington, DC capped off the morning with a powerful and inspiring talk that had audience members visibly moved. Moving into the afternoon breakout sessions was more of the same - presentations and sharing of knowledge and action around overcoming health disparities. Below are some resources I learned about while at the Summit

Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through Action on the Social Determinants of Health
http://www.who.int/bookorders/anglais/detart1.jsp?sesslan=1&codlan=1&codcol=15&codcch=741
Final Report of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health
Nonserial Publication
World Health Organization
The Final Report of the Commission on Social Determinants of Health sets out key areas of daily living conditions and of the underlying structural drivers that influence them in which action is needed. It provides analysis of social determinants of health and concrete examples of types of action that have proven effective in improving health and health equity in countries at all levels of socioeconomic development.

The Community Health Promotion Handbook: Action Guides to Improve Community Health
http://www.cdc.gov/steps/actionguides/
Partnership for Prevention® and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have developed The Community Health Promotion Handbook: Action Guides to Improve Community Health, an evidence-based tool that bridges the gap between research and practice. Five selected recommendations from the Task Force on Community Preventive Services’ The Guide to Community Preventive Services: What Works to Promote Health? have been translated into action guides that provide public health practitioners and others interested in health promotion with the necessary “how to” guidance to implement effective community-level strategies.

Moving Upstream: How Interventions That. Address the Social Determinants of Health Can. Improve Health and Reduce Disparities
http://www.nursingcenter.com/pdf.asp?AID=819665 (pdf)
David R. Williams, Manuela V. Costa, Adebola O. Odunlami, and Selina A. Mohammed
J Public Health Management Practice, 2008, November(Suppl), S8–S17
CopyrightC 2008 Wolters Kluwer Health | Lippincott Williams & Wilkins

In Other Words…Talking with Patients About Touchy Subjects
Sexual dysfunction, depression, and abuse are only a few of the many “touchy” topics patients find hard to bring up to their healthcare providers. This article highlights ways healthcare professionals can help when patients have difficult topics to discuss. You can find the full-text of this and many other articles at the On Call website http://www.boston.com/jobs/healthcare/oncall/ as well as the Health Literacy Consulting website, http://www.healthliteracy.com/articles.asp [posted on What’s New in Health Literacy Consulting]

Making Social Equity an Issue of Public Health
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009043.html
Lori Williams
November 18, 2008
WorldChanging
We expect differences in life expectancy between countries. But how do you explain a 28 year difference in life expectancy within a single city? A city with a universal health care system? Sir Michael Marmot posed this question in his keynote address to the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting while describing the difference in life expectancy between the most and least fortunate residents of Glasgow, Scotland. [posted on CLAStalk listserv]

Study: The greyer, the better for rural towns
Older residents seen as asset to smaller communities
http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081202/GJNEWS_01/712029917
John Quinn
December 2, 2208
Fosters
“A new study determined older Americans who retire to rural areas quickly become involved and are a tremendous asset to communities.” For more information or to download a copy of the report, visit http://carseyinstitute.unh.edu [posted on ALA outreach listserv]

Can Low-Income Americans Afford a Healthy Diet?
http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/November08/Features/AffordHealthyDiet.htm
Discusses how low-income households tend to consume less nutritious diets than other households, and they do not meet Federal recommendations for consumption of fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy products.
Organization: USDA Economic Research Service
Date: 11 / 2008
Journal: Amber Waves

Concentrated Rural Poverty and the Geography of Exclusion
http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/PB-Lichter-Parisi.pdf
Reports that social exclusion and isolation in poor communities often reinforce racial and class inequality.
Organization: Carsey Institute
Date: 2008
Rural Assistance Center Human Services Update

In Crisis, Remote Access
New York TImes
By JULIE BICK
Published: November 10, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/649kby
“..Aside from a few satellite phones and even fewer working cellphones, the area was isolated as relief workers scrambled to assess the security situation and address the vast humanitarian needs.

On the ground, Mr. Lopes unpacked a contraption made of circuits, chips and wires, pointed it at the sky and rolled out a solar mat, which turns sunlight into energy, to power it up. Aid workers plugged their laptops into the device, which offered the first stable Internet connection since the disaster had hit a week earlier.”

A growing number of research studies have documented the relationship between social determinants of health and health outcomes. However, relatively little is known about how to translate this knowledge into practice. To address this gap, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in partnership with Transtria LLC and the Saint Louis University Prevention Research Center, developed Promoting Health Equity: A Resource to Help Communities Address Social Determinants of Health.

This workbook was created to support new and existing partnerships to address the social determinants of health inequities. It highlights lessons learned by communities and provides information and tools to develop, implement and evaluate interventions that address social determinants of health inequities. It was designed for a wide range of users interested in achieving health equity.

Download or order a free copy of Promoting Health Equity: A Resource to Help Communities Address Social Determinants of Health from the CDC Community Health and Program Services web site:
Download the PDF (3.4Mb): http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dach/chaps/
Order a free copy (maximum of 10): http://wwwn.cdc.gov/pubs/CHAPS.aspx
[posted n CBPR listserv]

Addressing the nation’s continuing poor performance in cancer clinical trial participation, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities and low income groups, will require meaningful public involvement in the design and implementation of clinical trials, according to a report released today. Communities as Partners in Cancer Clinical Trials: Changing Research, Practice and Policy, developed by the Education Network to Advance Cancer Clinical Trials (ENACCT) and Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH), details 58 recommendations for how the cancer clinical trial system can involve communities affected by cancer: from trial design - to implementation - to dissemination of research results. The report, funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the National Cancer Institute, is the result of an 18-month collaborative effort involving key stakeholders in the cancer clinical trial system.

ENACCT and CCPH are now seeking “Implementation Partners” that will receive seed grants of up to $8000 and technical assistance to implement the recommendations. Proposals are due on December 5, 2008. The complete press release, full report, executive summary and request for proposals are available at the project website: http://www.communitiesaspartners.org [posted on CBPR listserv]

Public Health Preparedness Summit 2009
The Changing Face of Preparedness: Building and Sustaining Public Health Capacity for Disaster Response
February 18-20, 2009
San Diego, CA
http://www.phprep.org/2009/
The Summit is the largest conference for public health and emergency preparedness professionals offering a variety of plenary, panel, and poster presentations, roundtable discussions, and interactive workshops all focused on building, enhancing, and sustaining our nation’s ability to plan for, respond to, and recover from disasters and other public health emergencies. [sent by NACCHO]

Trust for America’s Health Releases Blueprint for Modernizing Public Health
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-Supported Report Calls for Stable Funding for Public Health and Offers Options for Making Up the $20 Billion Shortfall
Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) released Blueprint for a Healthier America: Modernizing the Federal Public Health System to Focus on Prevention and Preparedness. The report provides recommendations for the next administration and congress on ways to improve the health of Americans.  http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=35590&c=EMC-CA141

The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured has issued four new and updated resources on the trends affecting the nation’s 45 million people without health insurance:

• The Decline in the Uninsured in 2007: Why Did It Happen and Can It Last? http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7826.cfm examines the underlying shifts in health insurance coverage in 2007, which resulted in a 1.5 million decrease in the number of uninsured people under age 65, due to increased public coverage, including about 300,000 in Massachusetts, which implemented its comprehensive health reform that year. The brief projects that the current economic downturn and rising unemployment rate likely will cause the number of uninsured to grow by at least 2 million in 2008.

• Trends in Access to Care Among Working-Age Adults, 1997-2006 http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7824.cfm finds about 39 million working-age adults nationally reported cost as a barrier to receiving needed health care in 2006, a number that grew by an average of 1 million people annually over the decade studied. Uninsured working-aged adults experienced the most consistent erosion over the 10 years, resulting in a widening gap in access to care between insured and uninsured adults.

• The Uninsured: A Primer http://www.kff.org/uninsured/7451.cfm provides key facts about the nation’s uninsured population, including who the uninsured are, why they do not have health insurance, how coverage has changed over time, and the difference health insurance makes in people’s lives.

• Health Insurance Coverage in America, 2007 http://facts.kff.org/chartbook.aspx?cb=55 offers easy-to-use Web-based charts and tables reflecting the latest available data on the uninsured. The chartbook examines all nonelderly, children, nonelderly adults, and working adults separately, breaking out key data by age, gender, family income, family work status, industry, employer size, education, race/ethnicity, citizenship, and health status.

[posted on Kaiser Family Foundation email]

Fostering Partnerships Between Local Jails and Community Health Providers to Support Health of Community
Few people immediately think of jails as providers of community health. Yet correctional facilities, required by law to provide health care to their inmates while incarcerated, are vital to the health of their communities, especially to minority and low-income populations. The Community Oriented Correctional Health Services (COCHS), funded by the Vulnerable Populations Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, fosters partnerships between local jails and community health providers. Leveraging a community-based approach to care, inmates are much more likely to receive regular, routine care because they have a regular health care provider who manages their care. Learn more in this issue brief from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation http://www.rwjf.org/vulnerablepopulations/product.jsp?id=34689&c=EMC-CA144 [posted on the RWJF Content Alerts]

World Health Organization – WHO -  2008
Available online as PDF [148p.] at: http://www.who.int/whr/2008/whr08_en.pdf
14 October 2008 — There are striking inequities within and between countries in health outcomes, in access to care, and in what people have to pay for care, says the World Health Report 2008 launched today. To steer health systems towards better performance and greater equity, the report calls for a revival of the primary health care approach launched 30 years ago.

“….The report critically assesses the way that health care is organized, financed, and delivered in rich and poor countries around the world and documents a number of failures and shortcomings that have left the health status of different populations, both within and between countries, dangerously out of balance….”

Press Release: http://www.who.int/entity/whr/2008/press_release.pdf [posted on PAHO/WHO Equity email]