May is Hepatitis Awareness Month and May 19 is the first national observance of Hepatitis Testing Day

3.5–5.3 million Americans are living with chronic (lifelong) viral hepatitis—hepatitis B or hepatitis C. Most of them do not know that they are infected, placing them at greater risk for severe, even fatal, complications from the disease and increasing the likelihood that they will spread the virus to others.

What is Viral Hepatitis | HHS Strategic Plan to combat Viral Hepatitis | CDC Resources for Viral Hepatitis

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The 2012 Minority Health Conference Eliminating Health Disparities through Community Transformation Conference handouts

HHS Announces Comprehensive Plan to Reduce Health Disparities

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services unveil ed its road map for eliminating health and health care disparities on Friday, April 8, 2011 .  As promised during the follow up discussion with Dr. Damon Arnold, IDPH Director, you have an opportunity to comment via the online discussion board at http://moodle.uis.edu/course/view.php?id=249.   All comments will be reviewed, compiled, and distributed appropriately.  Additionally, you can view the Center for Minority Health Services activities related to the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities.

The following workgroups will be convened to identify and coordinate future action steps.  If you are interested in participating as a member of any of them, please contact the Center by email veronica.halloway@illinois.gov, or phone at 217-785-4311.

• Awareness – Increase the awareness of the significance of health disparities, their impact on the nation and the actions necessary to improve health outcomes for racial, ethnic, and underserved populations

• Leadership – Strengthen and broaden leadership for addressing health disparities at all levels

• Health System and Life Experience – Improve health and healthcare outcomes for racial, ethnic, and underserved populations

• Cultural and Linguistic Competency – Improve cultural and linguistic competency and the diversity of the health-related workforce

• Data, Research, and Evaluation – Improve data availability, and coordinator, utilization, and diffusion of research and evaluation outcomes

Featured videos:  

Girl Did You Know . . .

American Teens and HIV

Chicago teens PSA promoting Text2Survive

Quality of Life Endowment Fund

• Nationally, AIDS is the leading cause of death among African American women age 25-34 and the second leading cause of death of African American men age 35-44.

• HIV/AIDS cases among African Americans are the highest among all racial/ethnic groups with a total of 1,406 cases reported in 2004 in Illinois, which consists of more than half the total reported cases in the state (2,662).  Whites comprised 26 percent of the reported cases, Hispanics 15 percent and Asians 1.4 percent.

• Of the total reported HIV cases among females in Illinois, 70 percent were African-American.

• Among the total male population with HIV in Illinois, 47 percent were African American.

• Nearly 72 percent of African-American women and 64 percent of African-American men with HIV infection reported in 2004 were under 40 years of age.
  

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