{"id":5349,"date":"2011-11-17T10:59:56","date_gmt":"2011-11-17T17:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=5349"},"modified":"2011-11-17T13:27:57","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T20:27:57","slug":"forum-organizers-american-healthcare-inequities-cause-needless-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=5349","title":{"rendered":"Forum organizers: American healthcare inequities cause needless deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Jandel Allen-Davis of Kaiser Permanente<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With an estimated 50 percent of black Americans suffering from a chronic disease or disability by the time they reach adulthood and with dramatically shorter life expectancies than white Americans, improving the U.S. healthcare system is of primary importance, a group of local business leaders and health experts declared Wednesday night during an on-campus forum.<\/p>\n

The forum, organized by Excelsior and Associates in coordination with the Colorado Springs Black Chamber of Commerce, included African-American community leaders as well as representatives of health insurance companies, state, and county health officials. They came to UCCS to discuss inequities in healthcare as well as broad solutions outside of national healthcare reform efforts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak welcomed forum participants.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The group was welcomed by Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak and was assisted by Kee Warner, associate vice chancellor for diversity and inclusiveness, Academic Affairs, and Anthony Cordova, director, Multicultural Office for Student Access, Inclusiveness and Community. Shockley-Zalabak told the group she hoped UCCS could play a role in convening groups to discuss important issues and shared that healthcare is an important family issue for many UCCS students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe there\u2019s enough money in the U.S., China, Russia and Brazil to solve this problem unless you, as a citizen, get involved,\u201d Will Phillips, of Excelsior and Associates, said.<\/p>\n

A panel of experts used statistics, anecdotes and experience to draw a picture of an American healthcare system they believe has giant gaps in patient care that are often based on income levels, race and geographic location.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Kandi Buckland, a UCCS alum and executive director of El Paso County Department of Public Health.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The experts included Dr. Jandel Allen-Davis, vice president of government and external relations, Kaiser Permanente, Kandi Buckland, executive director, El Paso County Department of Public Health, U.S. Army Lt. Col. (retired) Shelia Mitchell, and Dr. Christopher Urbina, executive director and medical director, Colorado Department of Public Health.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealth care is not enough,\u201d Urbina said. \u201cNor are community solutions enough. It really has to be \u2018and.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Urbina said that the U.S. health care system only affects 15 to 20 percent of an individual\u2019s health while genetics accounts for five to 10 percent. The balance is determined by personal choices, environment, employment, education, housing and transportation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak with forum moderator Rhonda Arrington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each of the experts encouraged focus on what they called winnable battles. Urbina\u00a0advocated ensuring that Colorado residents have clean water, clean air and safe food. He also emphasized concentrating on such problems as oral health, substance abuse, tobacco use, obesity, unintended pregnancies, mental health including suicide prevention, and reducing infections and illnesses through vaccinations.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiabetes Type Two is a knife and fork issue,\u201d said Dr. Lasandra Watson,\u00a0an audience member, during a discussion of encouraging a health care system to focus on disease prevention instead of treatment.<\/p>\n

Both Buckland and Allen-Davis talked about current and planned efforts underway by El Paso County and Kaiser Permanente to gather data and implement programs that will help prevent illness, improve access to healthy foods, and make the healthcare system more efficient.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bob Armandariz, left, editor, Hispania News, asks Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak a question prior to a healthcare inequities forum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But it was Phillips who put the exclamation point on the discussion and the call to action.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the period 1991 to 2000, mortality data concluded that had mortality rates of African Americans been equivalent to whites, we would have saved 880,000 lives,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cThe goal has to be to bring these rates even and then move the country to be healthcare leaders in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

— Photos by Tom Hutton<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With an estimated 50 percent of black Americans suffering from a chronic disease or disability by the time they reach adulthood and with dramatically shorter life expectancies than white Americans, improving the U.S. healthcare system (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/IMG_4153.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-1oh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5349"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5362,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5349\/revisions\/5362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}