Mayo Clinic Team Takes on the Health Disparities Challenge

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

As part of its mission to train the next generation of physicians and scientists, the Mayo Clinic Center for Translational Science Activities (CTSA) offers the Health Disparities Field Experience, a unique course through Mayo Graduate School. For this year's fieldwork, course scholars and faculty are joining with the Center for Minority Health (CMH) at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health in its innovative program called 'Take a Health Professional to the People Day' on Sept. 18, 2008. This event has been recognized nationally with a feature on the Web site of the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Health disparities — the gaps in health care access and outcomes among different populations — lead to higher rates of chronic illness, disability and death from preventable causes for minorities. Now in its seventh year, Take a Health Professional to the People Day deploys teams of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and public health educators to 10 barbershops and beauty salons in inner-city Pittsburgh to deliver health information and health screenings to customers. In 2007, 150 health professionals screened more than 556 African-Americans in these neighborhood settings.

Three scholars from CTSA's postdoctoral programs will travel to Pittsburgh and join local health professionals for this year's events. They are Sencan Solay Unal, M.D., a psychiatrist enrolled in Mayo's KL2 Mentored Career Development Program; and cardiologists Yoel Korenfeld Kaplan, M.D., and Hari Chaliki, M.D., who are pursuing master's degrees in Clinical and Translational Science.

Accompanying the scholars will be W. Charles Huskins, M.D., associate director for CTSA Education Resources; Eddie Greene, M.D., director of Health Disparities curriculum development and director of the Office of Diversity at Mayo Clinic Rochester; Jacquelyn Gosse, external collaborations coordinator for the CTSA; and Lisa Schrader, program coordinator for the Mayo Health System Practice-Based Research Network. During their weeklong visit to Pittsburgh, the Mayo Clinic team will also meet with the local community research advisory board and participate in activities with another CMH program, the Healthy Black Families Project.

"We see this hands-on fieldwork in Pittsburgh as a great opportunity for our scholars, faculty and staff to observe programs that are making a real difference in addressing health disparities in minority communities," says Dr. Huskins, the Health Disparities course director. "Our goal is to bring back ideas and techniques that we can apply in Olmsted County and surrounding communities to help us reach minority and underserved populations through improved health care and medical research."

Why take health education efforts to barbershops and beauty salons?

These settings are effective because they are familiar community assets and trusted institutions in African-American neighborhoods where people gather to connect and exchange information. "Far too many African-Americans have no 'medical home' to access health care services, so government programs that promote 'taking a loved one to the doctor' are not as effective for this community," explains Stephen B. Thomas, Ph.D., director of CMH and the Philip Hallen Professor of Community Health and Social Justice. "Therefore, CMH created Take a Health Professional to the People Day. By focusing our efforts on a single day, we believe we can help generate a greater understanding of the importance of regular health screenings while at the same time reaching people who tend to have the least access to health care." In addition, the program serves as an excellent training opportunity for health professionals, who benefit from engaging minority populations outside of the clinical environment.

"The first step to addressing the significant health disparities that plague minority and underserved populations in the U.S. is building trust by reaching out to them in a familiar environment — their own communities," says Sherine Gabriel, M.D., director of CTSA Education Resources. "The goal of our collaboration with Dr. Thomas and the Center for Minority Health is to help our students, faculty, researchers and physicians learn and apply these innovative community outreach strategies here at Mayo Clinic. Whether we're working with racial or ethnic minorities or underserved rural populations, we believe these strategies will make us more effective in reaching everyone in our service area and improving the health of our communities."

For more information about the Mayo Clinic Center for Translational Science Activities, visit the CTSA Web site.

For more information on the Health Disparities course and fieldwork and other Mayo Clinic CTSA Education Resources activities, contact Karen Weavers at 507-284-1275 or visit the CTSA Web site.

For more information about Take A Health Professional to the People Day, the NIH-NCMHD Research Center for Excellence in Minority Health Disparities, and other activities of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Minority Health, visit the University of Pittsburg Center for Minority Health Web site.

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