nwasianweekly.com
June 28, 2008

Health care disparities continue for all minorities

By James Tabafunda

Northwest Asian Weekly

While the battle for minority civil rights remains constant, quality health care for Asian Americans falls behind that for Caucasians.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Asian Americans are only 25 percent as likely as Caucasians and 50 percent as likely as African Americans and Hispanics to seek outpatient mental health care and are less likely than Caucasians to receive inpatient care. Also, those who do seek care are more likely to be misdiagnosed as “problem-free.”

Racial minorities continue to receive a lower quality of care and have less access to care, according to four health care professionals. They discussed current issues at the heart of this problem at the Northwest Health Disparities Conference on June 20 at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center.

KCTS 9 Connects host, conference co-chair and emcee Enrique Cerna welcomed them and several journalists and encouraged both to work together in finding solutions.

Dr. Benjamin Danielson, medical director of Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic, spoke first about challenges he’s seen as a pediatrician. Emma Medicine Whitecrow, vice-chair of the Governor’s Interagency Council on Health Disparities; Carrie Huie Pascua, director of the Department of Human Services of Benton and Franklin Counties; and Dr. Ricardo Jimenez, medical director of Sea Mar Community Health Centers, also spoke about health care disparities.

Danielson said the current health care system practices “divide and conquer.” “It’s easy to actually try to pull us apart and set us, in some ways, in conflict against each other rather than moving in unison to try to make differences in health care experiences for everyone,” he said.

Another challenge, he added, is overcoming disbelief of statistics supporting “health disparities and health injustice.” “You can show these numbers over and over again. People have their own rationalizations for why those numbers exist the way they do,” he said. “And, they really have trouble believing that those numbers really speak truth.”

Overcoming defensiveness among health care professionals, a dislike over the use of racial categories, a false belief that the U.S. health care system is excellent and a lack of will at top leadership levels, argues Danielson, are among a dozen reasons why disparities persist.

“It’s also about how we frame health disparities,” said Whitecrow. “We don’t call it what it is and it’s racism, and this has been around for generations. We know mortality is attached to your color of skin.”

She said how people access quality health care is going to be dependent, not on education or wealth, “but rather what you look like.”

“Will it (Native American health services) work? I’m hopeful,” admitted Whitecrow. “But, that’s me. I don’t know. I don’t have the answers, but I do know that I can be one solution.”

Because most health statistics cover the Caucasian population, she urged the minority community “to take ownership over collecting and disseminating their own data.”

Pascua says her department deals with issues such as mental health, developmental disabilities and chemical dependence, and people get confused over these terms. “You’re in the role of getting information out there,” she said to the journalists in attendance. “Words are very, very important to this community and to you.”

She echoed Danielson’s statement about poor workforce development contributing to the disparities, saying “It’s difficult to attract medical professionals — psychiatrists, nurse practitioners — who can serve our communities. Our population is drastically underserved in the Eastern Washington area.”

She also says matching medical professionals — such as qualified interpreters — with a population must take place before providing services to “somebody who may not speak the same language.” A further challenge, she said, occurs when many in the minority community believe “you certainly don’t talk to a stranger about your problems.”

Jimenez feels there is a lack of vision in providing health care to minority communities.

He said, “I see a lack of comprehensive, integrated delivery-of-care models that emphasize prevention, routine maintenance, health promotion, nutrition. In the long term, these actually make a difference.” With the lack of these models, he added, “As a primary-care physician, I find myself also being a social worker and a less-than-ideal nutritionist.”

All four panelists agree that more minorities should be included in clinical trials.

James Tabafunda can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.