Sunday, March 15, 2009

Register Now for the 4th Annual KDHE Center for Health Disparities Conference

"Building Partnerships to Wellness"

On April 6th and 7th, The Kansas Department of Health and Environment will convene its 4th Annual Health Disparities Conference in Topeka Kansas.

Click HERE to download the full Conference Brochure and Registration form

Conference Objectives:
  • Describe the complex social, behavioral and medical determinants of health which will enable participants to understand the impact of health and health care disparities within a population.
  • Discuss the statistics and epidemiology of health and healthcare disparities among racial, ethnic and tribal communities in Kansas.
  • Identify and clarify the role of the public health community in addressing health disparities.
  • Identify the importance of a multi-sectoral approach in addressing the impact of social determinants of health and the elimination of health and healthcare disparities.
  • Identify evidenced based prevention/intervention strategies and approaches that will result in systematic changes to the public health problem of health disparities.
  • Facilitate community based and public/private partnerships to improve the health and well being of our communities.
  • Explore multidimensional markets that impact community health, knowledge and economic development.

Presentation Descriptions

Health Access Project
Presenters: Roderick Harris, Director, Center for Health Equity, Sedgwick County Health Department
According to the Kansas Health Insurance Survey, approximately 11.5% (approximately 55,000) of Sedgwick County residents are uninsured. The impact of this problem does not just affect those individuals; it affects individuals, businesses and the entire health care system. This session will describe how the Board of Sedgwick County Commissioners initiated a community dialogue to research the problem and look for possible solutions to decrease the barriers citizens have to health care access. Three main barriers emerged: Coverage, System Coordination and System Navigation. The Health Access Project was initiated with working groups created to work on solutions to each of the identified system barriers.


Addressing Health Disparities through Community Partnership: Latino Health for All
Presenters: Paula Cupertino, University of Kansas Medical Center, Jerry Schultz, University of Kansas - Lawrence, Zora Pace, University of Kansas – Lawrence, Dan Schober, University of Kansas – Lawrence, Susan Garrett, University of Kansas Medical Center, Blanca Mendoza University of Kansas – Lawrence, and Stephen Fawcett, University of Kansas - Lawrence
In Fall 2008, the Latino Health for All Partnership began its work of collaborative action to create conditions that promote healthy living within the Latino community of Wyandotte County. The Latino Health for All Partnership’s mission is: To reduce diabetes and cardiovascular diseases among Latinos in Kansas City/Wyandotte County through a collaborative partnership to promote healthy nutrition, physical activity, and access to health services. This session will describe how the partnership has engaged over 40 individuals representing key organizations across diverse sectors including those in health and human service organizations, media, schools, faith communities, and government. Currently, the Partnership’s efforts are focused on the 66101 zip code (Strawberry Hill neighborhood) of Wyandotte County/Kansas City. Together they developed a list of strategic action steps to address disparities in physical activity, nutrition and access to health. The Latino Health for All Partnership has formed three Action Committees, each charged with planning and implementing social/ environmental changes to address one of the group’s priority goals.

Engaging Health, Education & Philanthropy to Improve Children’s Oral Health
Presenters: Dawn Downes, Project Director, REACH Healthcare Foundation
Two Kansas City regional health foundations approached dental, medical and early childhood leaders to enlist their involvement in developing an initiative to increase the number of children who arrive at kindergarten with healthy mouths. The 18-month planning process produced Project Ready Smile, an initiative being implemented in Allen, Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas and in three counties in Missouri. This session will discuss Project Ready Smile. The primary goal is to reduce oral disease in young children; secondary goals are to connect poor children with a dental home, encourage dentists to serve low-income children, and instill good oral health habits early.

Cancer-Related Health Disparities in Kansas: An Overview
Presenters: Henri Ménager, Cancer Epidemiologist, KDHE
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Kansas accounting for 22% of all deaths occurred in 2007. The cause-specific death rate for cancer adjusted for age was for that year 193.7/100,000 people. The burden of cancer is unequally distributed among population subgroups. Among those groups most affected by excess of morbidity and mortality from cancer were men and African-Americans. Lack of access to care, cultural and social barriers have been identified as the root causes of these health disparities. This presentation will present an overview of the current cancer morbidity and mortality rates in Kansas stratified by various demographic characteristics with emphasis on the health disparities. Prevention and screening data from the Early Detection Works program will also be discussed.

Living on the Edge: A Poverty Simulation
Presenters: Andres Dominguez, Program Officer, Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City
Linda Grier, Executive Office Manager, Northeast Kansas Community Action Program, Inc.
Gary Brunk, President and CEO, Kansas Action for Children (invited)
What would happen if a car accident or a lay-off left you without a job and resources? Can you survive a month in poverty? 32.9 million Americans live in poverty each day. It is difficult at times to truly understand the situations that families living in poverty experience every day. We invite you to walk a mile in the shoes of those facing poverty by participating in a community action poverty simulation. This experience provides participants with the opportunity to assume the role of a low-income family member living on a limited budget. The experience is divided into four, 15 minute sessions, each of which represents one week in which you must provide for your family and maintain your home. The session will dramatically demonstrate how much time and energy many families have to give just to survive day by day in poverty. The simulation will be followed by a facilitated discussion about public- policy initiatives and what our communities can do to address poverty and improve the health of our residents. Individuals will need to participate in both sessions.

Promotores De Salud
Presenters: Emily Bullard, National Cancer Institute Cancer Information Service, Cielo Fernandez-Ortega, El Centro, & Aura Morgan, Instructor, University of Kansas Medical Center
The population in Kansas is becoming increasingly diverse. Latinos are the fastest growing minority group. Between 2000 and 2005, Latinos increased threefold from 63,339 to 228,250 becoming the largest ethnic minority group in the state. However, Latinos are less likely than white non-Hispanics to have access to healthcare, to have health insurance, to have knowledge of existing health resources, to receive advice about healthy behaviors, to participate in health promotion programs, or to utilize evidence-based treatment. The use of community health educators or "promotores de salud" is one approach to eliminate health disparities. Promotores de Salud have been used for decades in underserved population and rural communities to improve health behaviors and connect people to the health care system. This approach has the natural ability to reach others with culturally sensitive methods, tailoring their messages to the special needs of the community. The goal of this presentation is to describe the implementation of a promotores de salud program in a community based social service agency. We will also describe a culturally and linguistically appropriate health promotion training for the Promotores de Salud based on Paulo Freire's model of “Popular Education”. Finally, we will describe health activities implemented by promotores de salud including 1) community needs assessment, 2) health events and 3) smoking cessation.

Community Themes and strengths assessment: Utilizing MAPP to assess quality of life using on-line survey methods
Presenter: Sonja Armbruster, Community Health Assessment Coordinator, Sedgwick County Health Department
MAPP (Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships) is a strategic approach to community health improvement. Community Themes and Strengths Assessment (CTSA) is one of four MAPP assessments which asks: How is quality of life perceived in our community? This session will look at the Methods for the CTSA and the results.

Unnatural Causes Screening, Episode 1
Facilitator: Roderick Harris, Director, Center for Health Equity, Sedgwick County Health Department
UNNATURAL CAUSES is a documentary produced by California Newsreel that explores how population health is shaped by the social and economic conditions in which we are born, live and work. This session will include a screening of Episode 1 (In sickness and in wealth) and a facilitated discussion around the issues raised.

Preventive Health Care Services: Unequal Care for Kansans with Disabilities.
Presenters: Amanda Reichard, KU Research and Training Center on Independent Living, and Jamie Simpson, MSEDisability Program Coordinator, KDHE
The primary purpose of this session is to provide participants with an understanding of the preventive screening and preventive health care utilization patterns of individuals with physical disabilities supported by Home and Community Based Services waiver in Kansas and Kansans with disabilities through the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey. This session will also suggest methods for increasing the utilization rates for preventive screenings and preventive health services.

Bridging the Gap
Presenters: Cathy Anderson, Jewish Vocational Services
This session will focus on the lessons learned from the experiences in the Bridging the Gap training in Kansas (including the cultural competency training) and briefly mention the efforts to create national certification.

Unnatural Causes Screening, Episodes 2 & 3
Facilitator: Roderick Harris, Director, Center for Health Equity, Sedgwick County Health Department
UNNATURAL CAUSES is a documentary produced by California Newsreel that explores how population health is shaped by the social and economic conditions in which we are born, live and work. This session will include a screening of Episode 2 (When the Bough Breaks), Episode 3 (Becoming American) and a facilitated discussion around the issues raised.

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