Diversity and Disparities Overview

The Catholic Health Association and the Catholic health care ministry are committed to the importance of diversity — both in the workforce and in meeting the needs of diverse patients.
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A Health Progress Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Discussion Guide

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Prayers

Limitless Love - A Prayer for Pride Month

Recommended for June 1

Lord God, our Maker,   
    
The work of your hands displays your goodness and glory;   
It is marvelous to behold.   
From the most intricate snowflake to the grandest of mountain peaks,   
With each inbreaking of the sun's rays that paint the sky until day's end,   
Your limitless love creates it all.   
    
As we gaze, then, upon your children,   
The special co-creators you have made   
To experience you and your beauty,   
May we always appreciate the dignity of each person:   
Straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender.   
May we witness your extravagant artistry of each beloved,   
Celebrate your Divine imprint upon each heart,   
And recognize how You fashion each human being with purpose and wonder.  
Your limitless love creates us all.    
    
Forgive us, Lord,    
For the constraint of our eyes that fails to take in another's beauty,   
For choosing the comfort of our own apathy instead of bearing one another's burdens,   
For not remaining silent to listen and silent when we should have cried out,   
Your limitless love forgives us all.   
   
We pray, O God,   
For the wounds the world inflicts,   
In thought, word, and deed,   
Against what your hands have made and ultimately, against you.   
Soothe and comfort, renew and redeem.   
Your limitless love restores us all.   
    
We pray for unity,   
For tenderness,   
For belonging and justice and freedom,   
For solidarity and bountiful compassion   
That the world may know who you are   
By the way we love one another   
And how willing we are to enter the splendor of co-creating   
With one another   
And with you.   
Your limitless love heals us all. 


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Reflection on Equity Prayer Card

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A new CDC report on maternal mortality found significant racial disparities, with African-American and American Indian/Alaska Native women 3 times as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause as white women. To learn more about maternal mortality read the report and visit the CDC’s Vital Statistics webpage.

CMS Office of Minority Health Report
(April 25, 2017) In recognition of National Minority Health Month, the CMS Office of Minority Health has released a data highlight that – for the first time ever – examines Marketplace enrollment activity by racial and ethnic subgroup, as well as spoken and written language preference. 
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Structural Racism and Health
A Collection of resources from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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What’s Killing Our Children? Child and Infant Mortality among American Indians and Alaska Natives
By Teshia G. Arambula Solomon, Felina M. Cordova, and Francisco Garcia
The very vulnerable demographic group of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) youth face unique and important challenges. The authors of a new paper from the National Academy of Medicine use the lens of infant and childhood mortality as a tool to recognize opportunities for action that could have an impact on this perhaps most critical indicator of the health of this population. The authors extract some lessons from the lived experiences of too many reservation and urban Indian communities and turn these tragic stories into useful tools for broader policy and health system change.
Read the article

Chartbook on Health Care for Blacks – National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has released a Chartbook on Health Care for Blacks, derived from the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Report, which summarizes trends in health care disparities by race related to access, Heckler Report priorities, and National Quality Strategy priorities. Key findings include increases in suicide and mental health disparities, improvements in access to care since the Affordable Care Act, and poorer quality of care related to person-centeredness and care coordination.
Download the free report and slide deck
Guide to Preventing Readmissions Among Racially & Ethnically Diverse Medicare Beneficiaries
As part of the CMS Equity Plan for Improving Quality in Medicare, CMS OMH, in collaboration with the Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and NORC at the University of Chicago, produced a Guide to Preventing Readmissions among Racially and Ethnically Diverse Medicare Beneficiaries. This Guide is designed to equip hospital leaders, as well as QIN-QIOs and HENs, with guidance for addressing avoidable readmissions in this population. The Guide provides a set of action-oriented recommendations, as well as case examples of initiatives that may be applied to reduce readmissions in diverse populations.
Download the Guide

A Practitioner's Guide for Advancing Health Equity: Community Strategies for Preventing Chronic Disease
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a new Health Guide resource. The opening section discusses practices and principles for incorporating health equity goals into organizations’ activities. While the focus of the document is public health and community organizations, it provides great ideas and examples that are useful across settings.

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Access to and Utilization of Care among Insured Adults
The Kaiser Family Foundation has a new issue brief out looking at the extent to which people of color may continue to experience disparities in access to and utilization of care even after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation. The brief examines differences in access to and utilization of care for Black and Hispanic adults compared to white adults among those who are uninsured, enrolled in Medicaid, and privately insured, using data from the 2014 Kaiser Survey of Low-Income Americans.

Other Articles

Equity of Care - Culturally Competent Care
Sr. Carol Keehan, DC
Reprinted with permission of Health Administration Press from Journal of Healthcare Management, vol. 58, no. 4, pp. 250-252. Copyright 2013.

Lack of Diversity in Medical Research Is Bad for Your Health (National Journal)
Low participation of minority populations in clinical trials can lead to development of medicines that are dangerous for the people using them.