Office of Minority Health

Grantee Information

State of Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
201 W. Preston St., 5th Floor, Baltimore, MD 21201
(410) 767-0094 (Phone)
https://health.maryland.gov/statestat/Pages/Home.aspx

The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities (MHHD) works with a network of over 3,500 organizations, groups and individuals, whose missions target minority communities in Maryland. MHHD's responsibilities include health policy and systems change, minority outreach and operation of a health information website and data center.

Grant Project Information

Maryland Promoting Diversity and Equity in Health Reform
$140,000
Dr. Carlessia Hussein
(410) 767-0094
husseinc@dhmh.state.md.us

Abstract

The purpose of the State Partnership project is to accelerate efforts to reduce minority health disparities by increasing diversity and cultural competency of health workforce, and promoting systems change through infrastructure enhancement and partnership development. Maryland's growing ethnic and racial minorities suffer from more health disparities than the general population. To address these issues, the project will continue current partnerships and establish strategic collaborations with Maryland-based health professional societies, the Governor's Workforce Investment Board, and the Maryland Health Reform Council. The project will also expand the number of partnerships devoted to promoting cultural competency and increasing health workforce diversity from eight to 17, and develop and disseminate a cultural competency and health literacy primer by 2013. To achieve systems change, the project will increase the number of Health Network members who sign partnership agreements, developing strategic actions to reduce health disparities, along with other activities aimed at increasing the number of network organizations and health disparities reduction demonstration projects. The intended outcomes include increasing the number of state and educational entities engaged in activities with an emphasis on increasing cultural competency of health professionals, and increasing in the number of health professionals participating in courses and continuing education opportunities focused on the principles of cultural competency and health literacy. In addition, the project expects to increase the number of network members with strategic plans and/or adoption of Maryland Disparity Plan recommendations to address minority health disparities in Maryland. In order to determine if such outcomes are reached, process and outcome data will be collected on a range of performance measures, including the number of partnership agreements, workgroup sessions attended, strategic plans and training materials developed, articles submitted for newsletter, educational materials that adopt cultural competency standards, and the number of partnerships that develop strategic plans to reduce health disparities.

OMH objective(s) toward which the project's results most contribute:

• Increased awareness, education, and outreach to address racial/ethnic minority health and health disparities problems
• Improved access to, and appropriate utilization of, health and other community-based services and systems through user-centered design for racial/ethnic minorities (e.g., health IT, culturally/ linguistically appropriate services, service provider education/ training, workforce diversity)
• Strengthened leadership and coordination to leverage resources and enhance effectiveness and efficiency of individual and collective efforts (including, but not limited to, research and data)

Key Healthy People 2010 objectives or subobjectives toward which your project's results most contribute (see Appendix 3 of OMH's Evaluation Planning Guidelines):

Healthy People objectives were not identified.