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[ Music ]
KOH: We want a country
where all people are reaching
their highest attainable
standard of health
but tragically too few people
are reaching that noble goal
and oftentimes people of racial
and ethnic minority backgrounds
are not reaching that goal
for reasons
that we can rectify.
KAUR: There was a time
when no one talked about cancer
on the reservations
or throughout the American
Indian Alaska Native population
but gradually there were people
who started to worry
that we were seeing more
patients, very desperate
patients with very bad
prognosis, and didn't quite
understand what was happening
in the community.
Gonzalez: Los tratamientos en cáncer y
los problemas que los pacientes,
especialmente latinos e hispanos,
que ellos tienen cuando los están
diagnosticando con cáncer, todas
las cosas familiares, el seguro,
acceso a los hospitales—eso es
muy importante para mí.
UNDERWOOD: As a resident I had a
gentleman come see me.
He was 59 years old.
He had private insurance
and he came to see me
in our ward service clinic.
That meant that he waited
for about three hours
to see a resident
because someone
in his family had told him
that they saw me give a talk
in a church
about prostate cancer.
Now this gentleman had been
diagnosed two years before
with a treatable cancer
but when I saw him it had
already spread to his bones.
So the question
for me was why didn't this
gentleman get treated?
He was educated.
He had insurance so he had
"access" to care,
however he did not receive
appropriate care.
KOH: Well there's a wonderful
saying that the health
of an individual is almost
inseparable from the health
of a greater community
and the health
of every community
that determines the overall
health status of a nation.
So the community is the
focus here.
It's very important.
We also know that health is more
than what happens
in a doctor's office.
It also starts
where people live,
labor and learn, play and pray.
[silence] So this is a very
aggressive and comprehensive
plan, in fact it presents the
greatest federal commitment
to eliminating health
disparities ever.
It also has commitments
to strengthening
and diversifying the workforce
and holding the Department
of Health and Human Services
accountable
for reaching these goals.
There are five key parts
to this strategy,
the first to transform
healthcare,
particularly using the lever
of the Affordable Care Act.
We know that minorities make
up about 1/3
of the nation's population
but about 1/2 of those uninsured
so we need to close
and in fact eliminate
that disparity
and really improve access
and coverage.
Second, we want to strengthen
and diversify workforce
so people can get the culturally
competent care they need
and deserve.
Third, we want
to improve population health
in a whole range of areas
from cancer to heart disease
to *** and other key areas.
Fourth and critically,
we need to improve data
collection because the data
on disparities has been
suboptimal so far.
In fact the provisions
in the Affordable Care Act
to improve data collection
at a granular level
so that we can create better
strategies for
eliminating disparities.
And then fifth,
the Affordable Care Act creates
multiple new offices
in minority health
and in fact elevates the
national center
for minority health
and health disparities at NIH
to a full fledge institute.
So these are all major
commitments and we're very,
very excited about them.
There’s a very important
saying that if you fail to
plan you plan to fail.
With this new plan
we have now a commitment
a road map and a
compass for the future
and we are very proud of that.
[ Music ]