OMHHE Weekly Newsletter  
May 17 - 23, 2015  

In This Issue
Upcoming Events
Webinar: Regulatory Environment for Telehealth
May 19, 2015, 12 PM
Click here to register!

Webinar: Impact of a Small Rural Hospital
May 28, 2015, 3 PM
Click here to register!

21st National Health Equity Research Webcast
June 2, 2015, 1:30 - 4 PM EDT
More information available here!
Funding Opportunities
VBCF Mini-Grant Program
Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation

National Health Education Program on Lupus
OMH

National Workforce Diversity Pipeline Program
OMH

Partnerships to Increase Coverage in Communities II Initiative
OMH

State Partnership Initiative to Address Health Disparities
OMH
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We're halfway there!
50 faith-based organizations have  joined  Virginia's 100 Congregations for Million Hearts initiative! T he #MillionHeartsChallenge is in full swing with a goal to sign up 100 Virginia congregations during 2015.  Invite your faith-based organization on board today! All denominations and geographical  locations welcome!  Check out the website to learn more!
Health Equity 
Doctors' prescription for LGBT healthcare
Philly.com, May 18, 2015

"The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community is a highly diverse and multifaceted group of persons encompassing all cultures, ethnicities, and walks of life. Under the LGBT umbrella, each individual group faces unique cultural and health-related needs but shares common challenges, such as social stigma, discrimination, and disparities in health care, that unite them."

Pregnancies more common among lesbian, gay, bisexuals
Asianage.com, May 17, 2015

Pregnancies are more common among lesbian, gay, bisexual youth than among their heterosexual counterparts, suggests a new study of New York City high school students.

 

Overall, sexual-minority students who were sexually active were about twice as likely as other students to report becoming pregnant or getting someone pregnant, researchers found.

Read more here!

Poor Sexual Health Knowledge Common in Young Minority Men
Renal and Urology News, May 17, 2015

Lack of knowledge related to sexual and reproductive health issues and high-risk sexual behaviors are common among young minority males, according to findings presented at the 2015 American Urological Association annual meeting.

Another Voice: Creating medical 'homes' for all patients
Ukiah Daily Journal, May 17, 2015

Health care is changing quickly under health care reform, with implications for both consumers and health care organizations. Consumers are being asked to make more choices and decisions about their care than ever before; and health care providers are being asked to reform and restructure health care delivery.

FDA Reaches Out to Minorities During Hepatitis Awareness Month
FDA.gov, May 18, 2015

Did you know that millions of Americans (mostly baby boomers) are living with chronic Hepatitis and up to 2/3 may not even know they are infected? Annually, in May, the public health community commemorates "Hepatitis Awareness Month" to bring attention to this disease, its symptoms, testing, and treatment options. This year, we are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct outreach for minority groups most affected by Hepatitis: Asian/Pacific Islanders (API) and African-Americans (AA).

Former HHS secretary says nation needs more minorities in health careers         
Ohio.com, May 15, 2015

When African-Americans, Latinos or Native Americans get sick, they often aren't treated by someone who looks like them or comes from a similar ethnic or racial background.

 

Those minority groups represent more than 30 percent of the U.S. population but account for fewer than 13 percent of all health-care professionals, a former secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services said Friday during the Akron Roundtable luncheon at Quaker Station.

Read more here!               
Cultural Health 
Latina Health Champion Spotlights Cancer Risks
Women's News, May 17, 2015

 

Ysabel Duron is a journalist advocate based in San Jose, Calif. A Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor, she founded Latinas Contra Cancer (Latinas Against Cancer) in 2003 to address the void in cancer services for Latinos, particularly in the low-income, Spanish-speaking community. Following a distinguished career in journalism that spanned over four decades, Duron now devotes herself full time to this mission. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her work as a journalist and as an advocate. She was inducted into the National Association of Hispanic Journalists' Hall of Fame in 2009. She is a past member of the board of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship and the convener of the Biennial National Latino Cancer Summit. 

Read more here!

Healthy Hispanic Living Renews Its Mission as CDC Issues Report on State of U.S. Hispanic Health
Benzinga.com, May 15, 2015

As Healthy Hispanic Living (HHL) launches a new education and awareness campaign around the Diabetes and Obesity epidemic that is hitting the Hispanic community especially hard in this country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released results on May 5th of its first national study on the health risks and leading causes of death amongst U.S. Hispanics. The study confirms heart disease and cancer as the leading causes of death in the Hispanic population, and higher death rates from diabetes and chronic liver diseases than non-Hispanic whites. As HHL has also written about since it started publishing in 2013, Hispanics are woefully uninsured - almost three times as less as non-Hispanic whites, according to the study.
Read more here!

Breaking the silence: How youth, adults overcame cultural stigmas against depression and got help
Palo Alto Online, May 15, 2015

Robin Thomas matriculated at Stanford University in the fall of 2008, and after a few months he was thinking about leaving.

 

"I was not happy. And I did not understand why," he recalled. "I made it to the greatest school in the country, it was sunny, the campus was beautiful, and yet I was sad." 

Read more here!
Rural Health
Rural Veterans In Need Of Care Face Uncertainty, Isolation
Task & Purpose, May 18, 2015

 

For rural veteran Mickey Ireson, appointments at the Department of Veterans Affairs are a source of apprehension and stress, rather than relief.

 

In early April, the former Marine infantryman received a call from the VA telling him that his evaluations for mental health and dental work had been scheduled at the Omaha, Nebraska, office. Ireson lives three hours away in Hastings. 

Read more here!

O'Connor: Save rural hospitals; expand Medicaid
Roanoke Times, May 17, 2015

Michael Thompson's April 26 commentary "Rural hospitals don't need Medicaid expansion," only serves to demonstrate - again - his misunderstanding of how hospitals serve their communities.

 

He points out repeatedly that the "largest business group supporting Medicaid expansion was the hospitals." Since hospitals are the entities losing the most money through the lack of Medicaid expansion, this is logical. If there was proposed legislation to assist restaurants in making up for the loss of revenue from customers who had skipped out on their bill, restaurants would be the loudest voices in support of that bill.

Read more here!

As rural hospitals struggle, solutions sought to preserve healthcare access
Modern Healthcare, May 16, 2015

On March 31, for-profit Parkway Regional Hospital in Fulton closed its doors after more than two decades of business in southwestern Kentucky. Rural Fulton County's only hospital employed nearly 200 and accounted for as much as 18% of the town's tax base.
Read more here!

Government policy creates "medical deserts" as 51 rural hospitals close in ten years
Dotmed.com, May 13, 2015

The American Hospital Association put four of its members who manage rural hospitals before a Congressional Senate Appropriations subcommittee last week in the interest of reducing burdensome regulations and advocating special reimbursement policies for rural Medicare patients.
Read more here!
Tools and Resources
The Mid-Atlantic Regional Health Equity Council released a Regional Blueprint for Action illustrating regional trends on health disparities and the social determinants of health. Child Health USA recently released their newest findings related to the health status and service needs of America's infants, children, and adolescents. The White House recently published My Brother's Keeper Task Force document which provides the one year progress on the initiative to address disparities among young men of color. The Women of Color Health Data Book, Fourth Edition was released last month by the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, which leads the development of this collection and presentation of data on race/ethnicity and disease.  A webinar recording is now available for the 2014 Update of the Rural-Urban Chartbook from Rural Health Research & Policy Centers. The Virginia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Services recently released the CLAS Academy Training Catalog.