African Americans are a diverse and heterogeneous group, by differing demographic factors, health status and disease risk. While it is common study health issues of African American relationship to the White majority population, such an approach, limit valid for many reasons, ignores the heterogeneity of the African American population and limits the values of study findings and the possible identification of unique and intervenable factors for improving access and quality of health care services. This fundamental approach shifts the paradigm to more focused research leading to a better understanding of health issues for a specific population group and greater opportunistic for interventions. Clearly some segments of the African American population are more vulnerable than others. Low-income African Americans are more vulnerable to limited access to a poorer quality of health care than the more affluent. African American with chronic illness may also be particularly vulnerable. We chose to focus on this research program on vulnerable segments on the African American population. Specifically, this research emphasizes the identification of health care intervention opportunities and best intervention strategies for low-income children and chronically-ill African American who primarily receive care from community providers in inner-city and rural communities. The overall long-term objectives of this research are to assess, inform, and expose the MSM clinical faculty, health care consumers, community health care providers, and health agency partners to an extensive knowledge base of intervention opportunities and intervention strategies for improving health care access and quality of services for vulnerable African American population groups.

P01HS010875

2000-09-15

2006-06-30