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“Where
there is no vision, the people perish!”
Proverbs 24:18 |
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In 1914, as a result of
the collective and individual efforts of African-American leaders who
recognized the link between health, and social and economic well
being, Dr. Booker T. Washington initiated Negro Health Improvement
Week, which evolved into National Negro Health Week and the National
Negro Health Movement. The first National Negro Health Week was
recognized in April 1915. As noted by Quinn and Thomas in "The
National Negro Health Week, 1915 to 1951: A Descriptive Account": |
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National Negro Health
Week was sustained and flourished by the broad-based participation of
a multitude of organizations: schools, churches, businesses and
worksites, local health departments, professional associations, the
media, and civic groups. While the Week originated at Tuskegee
Institute, the support from the United States Public Health Service
was critical to sustaining the effort over time. However, while there
existed standardized materials and a framework for the Week, there was
also the freedom for local observances to modify their activities to
suit their needs. This combination of governmental support,
collaboration among a multitude of organizations, and freedom to
develop a campaign appropriate to individual communities suggests a
model for community-based public health today. |
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Minority Health Today,
March/April 2001, 2(3): 44-49) |
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The dismantling of the
Office of Negro Health Work in 1951 - one of the "successes" of the
move towards integration in the middle of the last century - sounded
the death knell for the National Negro Health Movement. For more
than 30 years, under-funded community and faith-based organizations,
inadequately compensated minority physicians, and an overburdened
public health system continued to work to protect the health status
of disenfranchised African-Americans. Not until 1985, when the
Department of Health and Human Services created the Office of
Minority Health in response to the DHHS Secretary's Task Force
Report on Black and Minority Health, was there again national
acknowledgement of the existence of a disparity in health status
between black and white Americans that should not continue.
In April 2001, the National Minority Health Month Foundation (the
Foundation), in partnership with the federal Office of Minority
Health, launched National Minority Health Month (NMHM) in support of
Healthy People 2010. On October 3, 2002, the 107th Congress passed a
joint resolution (H. Con. Res. 388) to establish a National Minority
Health and Health Disparities Month. This joint resolution, made
possible by the collective efforts of committed organizations and
individuals throughout the United States, signaled a phoenix-like
rebirth and expansion of Dr. Washington's national movement to
eliminate disparities in all vulnerable populations. |
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The mission of the National Minority Health Month Foundation is to
improve the ability of policy makers, insurers, providers, and
communities to implement policies and programs that can result in a
measurable and sustained improvement in the health status of all
populations - including, but not limited to, African-Americans,
Native Americans, Hispanics, Asians/Pacific Islanders, Alaskan
Natives and Native Hawaiians. The Foundation accomplishes this
through research, small area analysis, partnership development,
monitoring, surveillance, and information dissemination. |
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We have it in our
power to
begin the world over again…
we see with other eyes;
we hear with other ears;
and think with other thoughts
than formerly used. |
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Common Sense. Thomas Paine
1737-1809 |
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