Connecticut State NAACP Conference

"Blue Ribbon Health Committee Updates"

Meeting schedule

January: 1/28/04, time: 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.
Location: Yale New Haven Hospital room T-120

February:
2/11/04 , time: 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: Yale New Haven Hospital room T-120

2/24/04 , time: 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: Yale New Haven Hospital room T-120

March:
3/9/04, time: 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: Yale New Haven Hospital room Bishop Conference Room, CB 1058

3/30/04, time: 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: Yale New Haven Hospital room Bishop Conference Room, CB 1058

April:
4/13/04 and 4/27/04 , time: 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Location: Yale New Haven Hospital room

1/28/04 Minutes- Summary
The Blue Ribbon Health Advisory Committee had its first meeting on January 28, 2004.
The Committee discussed and agreed to develop a Health Status Report on African Americans in Connecticut. The meeting protocol and project scope/road map was defined and discussed.

The Health professionals agreed on the methodology and strategies to move forward with this project, and to define the current African Americans Health Status in Connecticut and prioritize the issues, options and recommendations.

Some areas that will be discussed are Access to Quality Health, disparity, health policy and advocacy, ED utilization and other topics that the group deemed critical to the health of our communities. The group agreed to move forward and scheduled the next meeting on 2/11/04

2/11/04 Minutes- Summary
Brainstorming/Discussion(br> The Six Sigma strategy was applied to ignite discussion about the perceived scope and framework of the Health Status of African Americans Project. Participants were asked the question: What do you think is the most important disease to focus on for purposes of this project? Participants were instructed to write their answers on post-it notes and to pass them to the facilitator. After all notes were collected, the responses were categorized into broad topic areas, with assistance from the group. Broad categories of topic areas included: disparity, genetic predisposition, intervention/treatment/prevention/screenings, prevalence/incidence,mortality, environmental factors availability of data, importance to community, population group impacted, and quality of life. Subsequently, each participant was provided three red sticky circles to rate the topic areas in terms of the most important to guide the focus of the group’s work. Participants were advised that they could place all of their three votes in one category or spread them among categories. The two most popular categories were disparity and mortality. Closure for this activity will culminate with further analysis and discussion at the next meeting. (Please see attached matrix, which summarizes the results of this activity.)

Comparative Data
Trend data are essential. A Health Disparities Overview (2003) report was presented. The group agreed that trend data are essential. The American Cancer Society, “Cancer Facts and Figures for African Americans, 2003-2004,” report was distributed to the committee.
It was emphasized that a review of Connecticut data is critical at this point in the process. Recommendations were made for contact to be made with several experts: Dr. Lloyd Mueller, State of Connecticut, Department of Public Health; Judy Solomon, Connecticut Voices for Children.
It was advised that a copy of 1999 Connecticut Department of Public Health Report, “Multicultural Health” should be secured for distribution to the committee.

Decision making Criteria
Meeting Evaluation -Secure a bigger meeting room
-Secure more Connecticut Data
-Committee members should come to the nextt meeting with more definitive ideas about what we are going to do in the process of our work

Next Steps
Compile brainstorming results; complete discussion at next meeting; present Connecticut data