Pilot Study of County Resources Improving the Health of Minority Populations: Interim Report

Introduction 
In August 2001, the New Jersey State legislature enacted legislation in an effort to address the wide and persistent health disparities exhibited between White and racial and ethnic minority populations throughout the state. In addition to renaming the existing Office of Minority Health within the State Department of Health and Senior Services-now the New Jersey Office of Minority and Multicultural Health (OMMH)- the agency division was given additional duties. OMMH will now work towards improving existing data systems in order to ensure that the health related information collected by New Jersey's providers includes specific race and ethnic identifiers. It will also serve as an information and resource center for race- and ethnicity-related health information/data and function as an advocate for the identification, adoption and implementation of effective measures to improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations in the State. 
 

These legislative changes were enacted in response to recent data docwnenting a continuously widening set of disparities between White and minority populations in the incidence of cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, chemical dependency, diabetes, asthma, infant mortality, childhood immunization rates and IDV/AIDS. It has responded to the crisis by articulating the clear need for a State spearheaded effort to develop a new toolkit of strategies that will effectively address these disparities and begin to close the gap in health status between groups. The Office of Minority and Multicultural Health has become the collaborative entity through which innovative projects can be coordinated in a renewed effort to address racial and ethnic disparities in morbidity and mortality rates among minority populations in the State. 

Previous studies (see Martin 2001) have noted that the reporting of race and ethnicity at the local level is inadequate, leaving many unanswered questions about the reasons behind widening racial and ethnic disparities. Given this basic level of uncertainty, it is a challenge to devise innovative strategies that can adequately track minority groups and develop targeted interventions for improving minority health status and outcomes. This study, commissioned by OMMH, will attempt to provide a baseline sketch of the race and ethnicity related data available at the local level. It will recommend a set of system improvements that can lead to enhanced data quality, augmented analytic capacity and more effective program interventions for the reduction of health disparities. Ultimately, it is hoped that these renovations will help lead the way to improved health outcomes for minority populations within the State.