JOINT CENTER News Room
JOINT CENTER’S ‘PLACE MATTERS’ TEAM UPDATES S.C. LAWMAKERS
February 1, 2008
|
|
|
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
For more information contact: |
JOINT CENTER’S ‘PLACE MATTERS’ TEAM UPDATES S.C. LAWMAKERS
BENNETTSVILLE, S.C. – A group of health professionals and community health advocates met with about 30 regional lawmakers and elected officials on Friday to consider how to marshall resources to mitigate the health disparities that persist among African Americans and other racial and ethnic populations in South Carolina.
The meeting was sponsored by the Marlboro County “Place Matters” team that is affiliated with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington-based think tank, and its Health Policy Institute (HPI). It highlights a project that attempts to improve the health status of residents of Marlboro County and the surrounding region.
The discussion focused on which in-kind and financial resources can be assembled to help mitigate the impact of health inequities in the region.
“The Marlboro County Place Matters team is excited about updating our decision-makers about what efforts have been made over the last year,” said Karen Montoya-Butler, chair of the team. “We look forward to collaborating with them to secure resources as this laboratory for improvement in Marlboro County continues its work.”
“This initiative provides a critically important learning opportunity for participating jurisdictions and for the nation, as teams of dedicated participants develop, test and share new strategies to address social determinants of health,” says Gina E. Wood, deputy director of the Joint Center’s Health Policy Institute. “By addressing upstream factors that produce poor health outcomes, ‘Place Matters’ leverages an approach that differs from the usual disease reaction model.”
Janice Rozier, chair of the Marlboro County Interagency Council, talked about the roles that the 30 regional agencies in the council can play.
The Marlboro County Place Matters team has two major objectives: reducing emergency room admissions by connecting patients who need primary care services with appropriate primary health and mental health centers or providers and increasing the number of youths who graduate from high school by getting more students prepared for college or the high-tech job market.
One broad goal of the “Place Matters” initiatives around the nation is to increase understanding that “place,” including its history, culture and economic successes and challenges, plays a role in determining health status. Making improvements in health status requires not merely providing more health resources but also improving incomes, housing, access to health care etc.
HPI’s goal is to reduce health disparities by identifying their complex underlying causes and defining strategies to address those causes. Social science research has shown that patterns of health, illness, and health disparities can be modified if the social conditions that lead to poor health are changed.
The gap in health status and well-being between people of color and whites shows up in a variety of measures, including infant mortality, obesity, chronic diseases such as diabetes, poverty rates – for children as well as for adults -- and employment rates.
The Place Matters initiative is supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
For more information contact Betty Anne Williams, director of communications for the Joint Center, in Washington at (202) 789-3505 or at bawilliams@jointcenter.org.
####
Keep up with events at the Joint Center by viewing Joint Center Journal, the organization’s blog, at www.jointcenter.org.
Save Tuesday, April 8th for the Joint Center's 2008 Annual Dinner at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C.
MARCO WHITE