The University of Mississippi Medical Center is partnering with 11 institutions and organizations across the state to improve the quality of health and health care for minorities and the rural disadvantaged.
The Mississippi Institute for Improvement of Geographic Minority Health and Health Disparities is being funded with a three-year, $5 million-per-year grant from the Office of Minority Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“Mississippi is ideally situated to be a leader in improving and protecting the health of racial minorities and working to eventually eliminate the disparity that exists," said U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Mississippi is burdened with high rates of chronic disease, cardiovascular disease, low birth weight and infant mortality among minorities and those living in the state’s rural areas. The institute also is concerned with data suggesting depression and other mental health issues among minorities often go untreated.
“We have too many people in Mississippi who are dying young, having strokes early, who aren’t around to be meaningful members of their families,” said Dr. Warren A. Jones, director of the institute and distinguished professor of health policy at the Medical Center. “We believe that because of the grassroots involvement that our partners will have in the communities that this institute will motivate people to want to live healthier and make better decisions.”
The institute has set five goals: to increase the awareness of health care issues impacting minorities and the rural disadvantaged; to increase access to quality health care for minorities and the rural disadvantaged; to increase the number of health care providers servicing minorities and the rural disadvantaged; to improve health outcomes for minorities and the rural disadvantaged and to develop a model that can be replicated nationwide to improve the health of minorities and the rural disadvantaged.
“One of the key drivers of health disparities in this country is the misdistribution of health professionals,” said Dr. Dan Jones, vice chancellor for health affairs at the Medical Center. “Rural communities are finding it increasingly difficult to attract physicians and other providers of health care.
“This new institute will focus on this and other health challenges associated with geographical location, race and poverty.”
Mississippians, particularly minorities, have some of the poorest health outcomes in the nation, illustrating the need for the institute.
• In 1996, the cardiovascular disease death rate among African-Americans in the state was 37 percent higher than in whites and was 60 percent higher than the national average.
• African-Americans account for 75 percent of the state’s reported new AIDS cases.
• Mississippi has the nation’s highest percentage of African-Americans, with 37 percent.
• Infant mortality rates among minorities in some areas of Mississippi are three times higher than the national average.
• Almost one-fourth of the state’s population between the ages of 18-64 doesn’t have health insurance.
• Sixty-two of the state’s 82 counties are designated as medically underserved communities.
• Fifty-one percent of the state’s 2.9 million people live in rural areas. Mississippi is the fourth-largest rural state in the nation.
“We have a lot of challenges,” said Warren Jones, a veteran family physician. “I am a firm believer that if every Mississippian had a medical home . . . built a longitudinal relationship with a health care provider, whether it’s at a clinic, with a nurse practitioner or a doctor and actively engaged in their own health care prevention, that the chronic disease burden would go down dramatically.”
The institute’s plans are to reach its goals with the help of the 11 institutions and organizations, all of which have projects related to the institute’s four cores. The cores are:
• Research. The objective is to develop and foster research health disparity projects that focus on clinical and preventive interventions.
• Health services. The plan is to develop and assess a community-based service delivery model that addresses disparities and access to care issues.
• Education and awareness. The goal is to increase the number of health care providers in underserved areas and improve health awareness among residents in rural, medically underserved areas.
• Health information. The objective is to develop a technology-based infrastructure that will allow health care providers statewide access to real-time data and information.
“A lot of national institutes have said that the key to eliminating health disparities in America is going to rest in the ability to leverage technology to monitor health care,” Warren Jones said. “If you are hypertensive, if you live in rural Holmes County, we need to be able to document the episode of care, the quality of the care you get in that doctor’s or nurse practitioner’s office. It’s when we can document that quality of care that we will be able to see the existential disparity in the care.”
The institute also will work with a community advisory board.
“These are people that know what’s going on in the community and will help us to make sure that the agenda of this institute is what the community needs and not what we think ought to happen,” Warren Jones said.
Partners include: the University of Southern Mississippi, Alcorn State University, Tougaloo College, the Mississippi Primary Health Care Association, the Mississippi Hospital Association, the Mississippi Diabetes Foundation, Mississippi Valley State University, Rust College, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University and the Mississippi Department of Health.
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