AHA President: Disparities in health care

AHA President: Disparities in health caremust be eliminatedGreat strides have been made in treating cardiovascular disease in recent years, but those advances have not reached some Americans because of disparities in health care that must be addressed, according to AHA President Daniel Jones, M.D., FAHA.“While in the United States the medical care glass is indeed half full, I’d like us to spend a few moments to focus on the half that is empty,” Dr. Jones said in his President’s Address Sunday. “To make this metaphor more apt, the glass is clearly full for some of us — most of us in this room — but it is nearly empty for many of our neighbors.”Dr. Jones outlined four areas where the American Heart Association should lead the effort to build healthier lives for everyone. Those areas are making the reduction of health disparities a priority, expanding research, increasing the AHA’s efforts in advocacy and increasing efforts in the prevention of disease.To highlight the differences in health care, he traced the histories of two patients — an elderly white male living near a large city and a black female living in the rural south. The man benefited from medical advances for almost 30 years after he was diagnosed with hypertension at age 45. The woman was diagnosed with hypertension and diabetes at 24 and suffered a stroke at 38, which caused her to move to a nursing home and her family to declare bankruptcy because of the medical debt.“We must find ways to address the serious disparity in cardiovascular disease outcomes across geography, race, gender and economics,” Dr. Jones said. “Should we consider the problem of health disparities a social issue outside our area of interest? No, we should not.”Dr. Jones called for all government agencies and voluntary health organizations to make reducing disparities a priority.“The American Heart Association’s recently adopted strategic driving force calls for measuring our progress toward eliminating health disparities in cardiovascular disease,” he said. “This will help us keep eliminating health disparities a priority.”Expanding research will help increase the understanding of the causes of disparities and ways to eliminate them.“This will require continued investment in basic science, and translational, clinical, population, and quality and outcomes research,” Dr. Jones said.In advocacy, the AHA must be a leader in calling for more cardiovascular disease research that focuses on disparities.“It is clear that in the U.S., we cannot achieve good health for all until the issue of access to health care is addressed,” he said.Prevention is also important in reducing disparities, particularly primordial prevention in early life.“We must prevent obesity from an early age, as present science suggests prevention is our only real hope in managing the obesity epidemic,” Dr. Jones said. Some studies have shown that programs can reduce disparities in diseases like hypertension, he added.Although disparities are a problem, recognizing the problem has created an opportunity, Dr. Jones said.“I ask you to rise to this medical and moral challenge, seize the opportunity before us and commit to eliminating health disparities in cardiovascular diseases,” he said.