New Orleans Area Health Disparities Initiative

A coalition of New Orleans area based and national racial and environmental justice, legal and health research and advocacy organizations will convene an invitational meeting on June 12, 2006, to address the post-Katrina rebuilding process with the aim of creating safer and healthier communities.  The meeting venue is the Hilton New Orleans Riverside, 2 Poydras Streets, from 8:30am-5:00pm.   Background

 

The June 12, 2006 meeting is one of a series of regional meetings organized by the Poverty and Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) along with the Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and the Alliance for Healthy Homes.  The purpose is to highlight local responses to health disparities challenges in communities of color.  The meetings are intended to bring together public health researchers, health care providers, community organizers, legal services and civil rights lawyers, social scientists, urban and regional planners, policy advocates, environmental justice advocates, advocates for healthy and affordable housing, and local elected and appointed officials.  Interdisciplinary participants will share and learn about their common work and common ground in order to better understand and redress health disparities.

 

            Health is holistically defined in this initiative to include all social, environmental and health care systems (mental, physical and public) that disproportionately burden low-income people of color. Examples of health in this context span such environmental health hazards as those posed by multiple contaminant sources in housing, schools, the workplaces of low-income communities of color and prisons with disparate numbers of inmates of color.  Health denotes public health; mental health; health care infrastructure, access, and quality; and, most notably, health care results for vulnerable populations such as children, women of child-bearing years, people with disabilities, and the elderly.

 

            Due to the scrutiny of racial justice issues and health impacts in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the New Orleans area is the first site in the series of regional meetings about health disparities. We are also joined in this effort in New Orleans by the Center for Social Inclusion, a New York based organization that provides technical assistance on racial justice issues to local groups around the country.  The one-day meeting on June 12, 2006 and the planning activities leading up to it will launch new collaborations and follow-up initiatives, media coverage and public accountability focused on restoration and a sustainable future for this unique region. 

 

New Orleans Area Health Disparities Initiative planners and partners include:

 

Michael Andry, EXCELth, Inc.; Elodia Blanco, Concerned Citizens of Agricultural Street Landfill; Dr. Robert Bullard, Environmental Justice Resource Center; Lura Cayton, Church World Service Emergency Response Program; Johanna Congleton, Louisiana Physicians for Social Responsibility; Veronica Eady, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest; AlMarie Ford, LA Department of Health and Hospitals, Office of Mental Health;  Steve Fischback, Rhode Island Legal Services; Marcheta Gillam, Legal Aid Society of Cincinnati; Shana Griffin, People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond; Joanne Hale, Church World Service; Rebecca Harris-Smith, New Orleans Black Nurses Association; Albert Huang, Natural Resources Defense Council; Dr. Charlotte Hutton, LA Department of Health & Hospitals – New Orleans Adolescent Hospital; Joy Lewis, Community Environmental Activist St. Bernard Parish; Judith May, REACH 2010: At the Heart of New Orleans/Black Women’s Health Imperative; Mary Lee Orr and David Brown, Louisiana Environmental Network; James Perry, Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center; Erol Quintol, New Orleans Medical Assn; Rev. Cory Sparks, Carrollton United Methodist Church; Wilma Subra, Chemist/Environmental Activist; Dr. Cheryl Taylor, REACH 2010: At the Heart of New Orleans; Phil Tegeler, Poverty Race and Research Action Council; Ranie Thompson, New Orleans Legal Aid Society; Dr. Sheila Webb, Center for Empowered Decision Making; Lynne Wolfe, Center for Social Inclusion; Dr. Beverly Wright, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice; Bob Zdenek and Ralph Scott, Alliance for Healthy Homes.

 

The Sustainable Community Development Group, Inc. is managing and coordinating the planning process, the June conference, communications and logistics.

 

New Orleans Meeting June 12, 2006

 

            The June 12^th meeting launches the New Orleans Area Health Disparities Initiative.  The focus of this meeting is health justice:  fairness in targeting resources and redressing structural racism and economic discrimination faced by communities of color and low income communities in New Orleans.   Rebuilding the New Orleans area into safe and healthy communities for all inhabitants will require re-evaluation and re-structuring to eliminate injustices and barriers to health and quality of life. 

           

            Low-income communities of color systematically subjected to different treatment with respect to the condition of housing, schools, recreational space and economic development are forced to shoulder discriminatory toxic insults, stress and other disproportionate health burdens resulting in health disparities --– increased illnesses, more neurologically-based learning differences and above average premature deaths especially infants and young children.  Health disparities raise the alarm about how communities in the New Orleans area were built and should be rebuilt.

           

            Healthy people and healthy communities exist where key factors intersect:  access to quality and affordable healthcare – good health insurance and good health care providers, equal and quality treatment, environmental protection, decent housing, a living wage, availability of nutritious food, and positive self-image.  New Orleans now has the opportunity to target resources, implement new social infrastructure and sustainable development that promotes and ensures the civil right to health and quality of life for everyone.

 

            The June meeting will focus on developing culturally sensitive, proactive strategies aimed at centering health in the reconstruction debates on housing, economic development, employment, education, environmental cleanup, restoration of natural resources, transportation and mobility.  The goal of the New Orleans Area Health Disparities Initiative is to provide collaborative opportunities and a space for local groups and organizations around the nation to identify and address priority issues engage communities, policy makers, the public and private sectors. 

 

            While participants will determine future objectives of their collaborative work, the meeting will consider the following objectives:

 

• Establishing a new framework for understanding and talking about health disparities grounded in the geographic specific history of race and class in the New Orleans area;

• Building new partnerships and greater alignment for eliminating health disparities which cut across traditional boundaries of health, science, the ambient and built environment, jobs, wages, fair housing and legal services;

• Implementing new community development and environmental training programs for community leaders;

• Securing health coverage for all residents of New Orleans;

• Saving Charity Hospital and similarly challenged New Orleans health care providers and institutions.

 

For more information, contact Deeohn Ferris, Global Environmental Resources Inc., at

(202) 637-2467 or via email address info@gerinc.com.