Health Care Journalists conference targets minority health concerns
By Chris King
Of the St. Louis American
LOS ANGELES – Health issues of core concern to African Americans were front and center at the annual meeting of the Association of Health Care Journalists held March 15-18 in Los Angeles.
Diabetes, which disproportionately affects blacks, was declared a “global scourge” in one panel and identified as the next major worldwide health crisis if steps are not taken to combat its onset.
New genetic research into prostate cancer, which disproportionately kills black men, was reported in another panel, in advance of the groundbreaking research’s appearance in a peer-reviewed journal.
Other sessions detailed the damage done when Medicaid funding is cut, discussed health coverage for low-income children and described in detail important ethnic-based disparities in health risks and outcomes that must be understood properly if research and treatment are to benefit minorities.
“Diabetes is not a problem where we should say, ‘Ho hum, people have a touch of sugar,’” said Ann Albright, Ph.D, R.D., director of the Centers for Disease Control’s Division of Diabetes Translation.
She said approximately 21 million people worldwide currently are diagnosed with diabetes and “that figure will more than double by 2080” if more is not done to prevent the currently preventable form of the disease, Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 85 to 95 percent of diagnosed cases.
The key to prevention, as has been widely reported, are exercise and diet control.
While acknowledging that “it would be a darn lot easier if we were able to just give people a pill,” Albright said the research findings “put the charge before us as communities to make a healthier environment so that people can make better lifestyle choices.”
David Ludwig, M.D., director of the Obesity Program at the Children’s Hospital of Boston, made the same point in a separate panel about childhood obesity, which often leads to diabetes and other debilitating diseases.
Ludwig said, “Childhood obesity affects the quality of life as seriously as a diagnosis of cancer.” He argued for the importance of “proper parenting practices and protecting the home environment” by limiting the availability of junk food and by promoting physical activities.
New, more technical research of great importance to black men was presented in another panel by Brian Henderson, M.D., dean of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.
Henderson reported on groundbreaking research into the newly located basis of prostate cancer in the human genome. Unfortunately for progress in treatment, Henderson said, the portion of the genome identified is a “gene desert,” a “place where the DNA doesn’t encode anything known as a gene.” Though he aknowledged the research “doesn’t mean anything practical today,” it opens a crucial window into understanding this deadly disease. Regular screening and early detection remain the most important strategies for surviving prostate cancer.
Issues in public funding for health care were dissected in several panels.
“Drops in company-sponsored family coverage and a rise in premiums since 2000 that is four times wage increases is leaving Medicaid and SCHIP to pick up the slack,” said Barbara Lyons, deputy director of the Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) covers children from families with incomes slightly above the threshold for Medicaid eligibility.
Lyons argued that preserving adequate funding for these programs is essential to the health of minority populations.
“Medicaid and SCHIP reduce health disparities based on low income and race and improve classroom performance,” she said.
Patrick T. Dowling, M.D., chair of family medicine at UCLA, summarized dangerous income-based inconsistencies in health care with succinct phrases.
“White follows green,” Dowling said, explaining how doctors (in white coats) go where the money is. This explains what he called the “Inverse Care Law,” which states that “the fewest physicians will be found where the greatest needs are.”
This dynamic can be offset, in part, by increasing diversity within the ranks of medical students.
“If you train people from under-served populations, they are more likely to treat people from under-served communities,” said Michael V. Drake, M.D., an African American who serves as chancellor of the University of California at Irvine.
The conference also offered insight into best practices, such as the Community Health and Advocacy Training (CHAT) Program at the University of California at Los Angeles, an intensely community-based residency program for medical students studying pediatrics (children’s health).
“Pediatricians need to work beyond the walls of the clinic,” said CHAT Director Alice Kuo. “Our job as pediatricians, ultimately, is to see that our kids do well at school.”
The conference had its own diversity initiative, with 16 fellowships to attend the event being provided to members of the ethnic media by the California Wellness Foundation. The California HealthCare Foundation and Missouri Foundation for Health also sponsored lengthy lists of attendees from a wide range of media, including the St. Louis American.