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Date: Wednesday, July 1, 1998                                             
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
Contact: HHS Press Office (202) 690-6343

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is launching a new site on the World Wide Web to make available information about its Initiative to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health -- a new strategy unveiled earlier this year to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities in six key areas of health status by the year 2010.

The new web site is now available at raceandhealth.hhs.gov, and can also be reached via a hyperlink from the main departmental web site, www.hhs.gov. Users will be able to access information about racial and ethnic health disparities in the U.S. as well as background material on the various components and goals of the health disparities initiative.

President Clinton is seeking $400 million over five years to support public-private collaborative efforts, led by HHS, to close the gaps between racial and ethnic populations and white Americans in six health categories where disparities have been identified as measurable and pronounced. Those areas are infant mortality, cancer screening and management, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS infection rates, and child and adult immunizations. The Department has committed to eliminating the gaps in these areas by 2010 with interim goals set for 2000.

"Closing racial and ethnic health gaps is so important to the health of all Americans. If the American people are going to be our partners in this effort, they need to be aware of the extent of these disparities, and they need to know what we're doing as we work to eliminate them," said HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala. "The Clinton Administration's goal with this site is to develop a useful, interactive information clearinghouse that will enable the public to participate in this national effort."

An e-mail address is provided at the site for visitors to send feedback and comment.

"Good communication will be a key component of making our public health system work better for all Americans," said Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher. "This web site should provide communities across the nation with the information they need to be a part of this historic initiative."

Visitors to the site can click on an overview of the initiative, listen to President Clinton's Oval Office address announcing the initiative, or link to other related web sites.

Also, the site contains links to specific information about each of the six goal areas of the initiative, where browsers can access details about each objective as well as statistics on each of the six areas of health status.

"In order to succeed, efforts to eliminate these disparities need to be based on stronger partnerships between all parts of the public and private sectors, including federal, state, local, and tribal governments, foundations, businesses, national and regional organizations, and communities and their leaders," said Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation for the Department.

"We hope that this web site will provide valuable information to all sectors and foster more effective collaboration," added Dr. Hamburg, whose office will maintain and update the web site regularly with new materials and information.

The web site will serve as an integral part of the racial and ethnic health disparities outreach campaign.

While the site is geared to ordinary citizens who want to know more about racial and ethnic health disparities and what can be done about them, it is also hoped that local community leaders, churches, health care professionals, community-based health providers and experts in minority health will access the web site to obtain information to assist their own education efforts within local communities.