Daniel Fowler, The Examiner
2007-02-19 08:00:00.0
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Prince George’s County -

Prince George’s top health official said his department is “aware and concerned” about health care disparities in the community and can’t wait for “the nation to lead in how we address” them.

Acting Health Officer Donald Shell made his comments after U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., ripped Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt last week for failing to address racial and ethnic health care disparities during his budget testimony. Cardin also criticized the Bush Administration for cutting funding to train minority health professionals by $135 million in the fiscal 2008 budget.

“With the majority of the population being African-American,” Shell said, “health care disparity issues are major concerns of the health department here in Prince George’s County.”

Shell said the county attacks health care issues in a variety of ways, including community outreach, HIV testing and counseling, a family diabetes program, a maternal and child program and an adult health program that deals with diabetes, hypertension, cancer and obesity.

Though Cardin told The Examiner, “there are communities within Prince George’s County in which there are concerns about access to care,” the senator said the “main thrust” of his comments was directed at the overall issue.

Cynthia Saunders, an assistant professor at University of Maryland, College Park who focuses on access to health care, said Cardin is “quite courageous by discussing this and taking aim at Secretary Leavitt.”

“I think Sen. Cardin is right on,” she said. “We need to continue studying this issue and make sure that we train more health providers who are minorities and who are really bicultural and bilingual.”

Saunders pointed to a variety of statistics from the 2004-2005 Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts to highlight the problem in Maryland.

According to the statistics, 28.5 percent of Maryland’s population was black, compared to 12.1 percent nationwide. However, only 5.2 percent of Maryland’s 2005 medical school graduates were black, versus 6.6 percent in the United States.

“We are not going in the right direction,” Saunders said.

dfowler@dcexaminer.com