SBUMC Forms Minority Health Coalition to Address Disparities in Healthcare Within Long Island Communities

SB Medicine News
SBUMC Forms Minority Health Coalition to Address Disparities in Healthcare Within Long Island Communities

Assembled at the Mini-Summit on Minority Health, sponsored by the Center for Public Health and Health Policy Research at Stony Brook University Medical Center, and held at the Hamlet Wind Watch Golf & Country Club in Hauppauge, are members of the planning committee. From left: La’Shawn Brown, Partnership Program Coordinator, National Cancer Institute Cancer Information Service of New York; Dr. Cicely Horsham-Braithwaite, Assistant Professor of Counseling, University of Bridgeport in Connecticut; Dr. K. Althea Maybank, Director, Office of Minority Health, Suffolk County Department of Health Services; Dr. Aldustus E. Jordan, Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Stony Brook University School of Medicine; Dr. Melody Goodman, Associate Director, Center for Public Health and Health Policy Research; Jewel Stafford, M.S.W., Project Manager, Center for Public Health and Health Policy Research, and Nikki Stewart, Education Specialist/Navigator, Witness Project® of Long Island.

STONY BROOK, N.Y., August 14, 2007 – Physicians and researchers from the Center for Public Health and Health Policy Research at Stony Brook University Medical Center held a Mini-Summit on Minority Health, bringing together 40 regional professionals to discuss ways to address health disparities and improve care in minority communities on Long Island. The event took place on July 25 at the Hamlet Wind Watch Golf & Country Club in Hauppauge, N.Y.

The immediate task of the new coalition is to assess the overall health of African Americans in Suffolk County. Racial and ethnic minorities nationwide and on Long Island have a higher incidence of hypertension, diabetes, and certain forms of cancers compared to Whites. The coalition will work to create educational programs about disease prevention and treatment and help increase access to care in minority and medically underserved populations.

“Stony Brook will continue to take a leadership role within the coalition to deal with the many issues associated with health disparities on Long Island,” says Aldustus E. Jordan, Ed.D., Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, and a member of the coalition.

“We know a great deal about minority health disparities, which include increased risk of poverty among minority residents, increased exposure to environmental health threats, greater problems with access to medical care, and racism,” says Raymond L. Goldsteen, DrPh, Director of the Center for Public health and Health Policy Research.

“We are going to take all of this knowledge and spring it into action,” adds Melody Goodman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine and Associate Director of the Center. “The Summit produced three important themes that we intend to act on – improving access to care, addressing how to assist non- and under-insured individuals, and building a coalition of healthcare and community professionals to work together to address disparities.”

Direct community involvement is essential to the success of the initiative. Dr. Goodman says that community-based participatory research will help to discover specific health needs and concerns in individual communities. For example, prostate cancer screening could be a priority for one community, a need to be more vigilant about controlling high blood pressure for another, or a simple access to care for a third community. Short and long-term strategies to resolve such concerns would then be put in place via the Center and community-based organizations.

The Center is collaboration between the Graduate Program in Public Health at Stony Brook University and the Suffolk County Department of Health Services. The coalition will meet again this coming fall to begin working in specific minority and medically underserved communities.

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