SHIRE works to support a multidisciplinary approach to achieving health equity, forming partnerships with other organizations to mobilize for change.

SHIRE’S Past Accomplishments in Health Disparities

Building Multicultural Coalitions

Since 1999, SHIRE has coordinated the first ever national advocacy coalition led by people of color and dedicated to achieve health parity for the five major racial and ethnic minority groups in the nation. Notable Out of Many, One (OMO) accomplishments are a precedent-setting national conference (November 2000) where participants developed a widely-distributed strategic plan for achieving health parity by 2010; production of cultural celebrations and conduct of workshops for the 2002 National Summit on Health Disparities sponsored by the Office of Minority Health (OMH), HHS; leadership of advocacy, policy and program initiatives at OMH and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; numerous presentations and workshops on coalition-building and health disparities at national, regional and local conferences; and working management and steering committees in which each racial/ethnic group is equally represented. Support for these efforts has come from the Office of Minority Health, the Ford Foundation, and The California Endowment.

For more information on the effort to achieve health parity, please visit the Out of Many, One website. www.outofmany1.org

Strengthening the Informed Consent Process to Address Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities

SHIRE provided major support to the Office of Minority Health and the Office of the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services for the investigation of the relationship between trust and racial/ethnic health disparities, contributing factors to that dynamic and the efficacy of informed consent and other strategies to reduce and ultimately eliminate disparities in health experienced by minorities. Study premises reflected the awareness that trust, distrust and trustworthiness continue to have a negative impact on public health outreach, clinical trials and other forms of research, as well as on health care access and treatment. Data gathering activities included an environmental scan, interviews with key informants, an extensive literature review, completion of analytical briefs, an expert panel meeting and a national conference held at Tuskegee University in June 2004, with a final report submitted in December 2004.

National Policy Agenda: Eliminating Health Disparities in Communities of Color

With major support from The Commonwealth Fund, SHIRE is implementing a two-phased project to create a national policy framework and to promote implementation of racial and ethnic health parity initiatives. In April 2004, SHIRE published the National Policy Agenda, which was the outcome of a Multicultural Leadership Forum convened by the Fund and SHIRE earlier in the year. This agenda was widely distributed, by the American Public Health Association, Out of Many, One, the California Pan-Ethnic Network and other organizations, as a guide to develop and assess policies and programs. National policy-makers, in the executive and legislative branches of government, have also been introduced to the agenda. In early 2005, SHIRE collaborated with The Commonwealth Fund and elected officials in sponsoring a briefing on national policies to eliminate health disparities, and produced a final report detailing ways in which the National Policy Agenda and other project deliverables have been used.
 Multicultural Leadership Forum National Policy(78.2 KiB)

To see a recent one-pager submitted to the Senate on the potential for cost-savings for reducing health disparities and improving prevention, click the document below.
 Cost of Health Disparities(180.1 KiB)

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