Minority Health Resources

Underserved Populations -- Resources for patients who have a low degree of health literacy, patients who have trouble paying for their medications and patients who are immigrants to the United States.

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transexual (GLBT) -- While all people share common health concerns, some concerns are specific to the GLBT community. For example, many GLBT people are subjected to discrimination and outright violence. This increases stress and can take a toll on mental health.

Women -- Links to organizations serving women's health care needs.

African Americans -- Factors contributing to poor health outcomes among African Americans include discrimination, cultural barriers, and lack of access to health care.

American Indians/Alaskan Natives -- To be culturally competent, health programs must begin to define community, prevention, networking, collaboration, and healing as it relates to cultural understanding and awareness.

Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders -- Asian Americans have historically been overlooked due to the “myth of the model minority”: the erroneous notion that Asian Americans are passive, compliant, and without problems or needs. The effects of this myth have been the failure to take seriously the very real concerns of this population.

Hispanic/Latino -- Health profiles of Hispanic and Latino Americans are unique: Puerto Ricans suffer disproportionately from asthma, HIV/AIDS, and infant mortality, while Mexican Americans suffer disproportionately from diabetes.

HHS Office of Minority Health -- The mission of OMH is to improve the health of racial and ethnic populations through the development of effective health policies and programs that help to eliminate disparities in health. OMH works to improve collection and analysis of data on the health of racial and ethnic populations. OMH also monitors efforts to achieve the goals of Healthy People 2010 and administers the Race and Health Web site.

NIH National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities -- Leads, coordinates, supports, and assesses the NIH effort to reduce and ultimately eliminate health disparities. Conducts and supports basic, clinical, social, and behavioral research, promotes research infrastructure and training, fosters emerging programs, disseminates information, and reaches out to minority and other health disparity communities.

Minority Health Project -- University of North Carolina School of Public Health at Chapel Hill. Conducts educational programs, provides information on research and sources of data on minority health. The site maintains links to useful organizations.