Rochester Lead Effort a Model for Other Upstate Communities

News Release from URMC:

The diverse grassroots partnership that was the catalyst for Rochester’s historic lead law will now serve as a model for other upstate New York communities grappling with high rates of lead poisoning.

A $139,771 grant from the New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth) will enable staff from the University of Rochester Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC) to work with non-profit organizations in Auburn/Cayuga County, Elmira/Chemung County and Oneida County to help build lead poisoning prevention coalitions in these communities that will focus on planning, community education, and primary prevention.

“The goal is to help coalitions in these cities to achieve the critical mass and focus necessary to secure ongoing funding and sustainability,” said Katrina Korfmacher, Ph.D., Community Outreach Coordinator for the EHSC. “Ultimately, we want to create a statewide model of how communities can come together to effectively address their environmental health problems with strategies that are tailored to their individual community.”

The model for these efforts will be the Rochester Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning (CPLP). The CPLP – which is also a participant in the project – is an education and advocacy organization composed of diverse individuals and community organizations that has worked since to reduce the city’s high rates of childhood lead poisoning. The CPLP will provide technical assistance and advice to community groups in each of the three counties to develop their local capacity in lead poisoning prevention.

Cultural Competancy and Medical Training

There is an interesting article this week in USAToday that explores the importance (and effectiveness) of cultural competency training for physicians as an important element in address disparities in health care.

Here are some excerpts:

[A] growing amount of research is investigating whether small cultural differences — most of them between white, male doctors and their diverse patients — could be a big reason for the nation’s persistent health care disparities…

The federal government is financing studies examining whether the training can help health care workers get diverse groups to comply better with doctors’ orders.

But no study has proven cultural competency training works, either by improving doctor-patient relationships, increasing patient compliance or reducing disparities.

But examining the question is the first step to addressing the problem, says Ramon Jimenez, chairman of the diversity advisory board of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. “Cultural competency will have to be on everybody’s radar screen for generations to come. When the day comes that the melting pot is truly a melting pot, then we won’t need this, but that day isn’t here yet.”…

It is common for black patients to distrust doctors and hospitals for many reasons, including a general distrust of hospitals, fear that doctors may recommend surgery when it isn’t necessary and concern they may suffer bad outcomes, says Tony Rankin, an orthopedist in Washington and the first black president-elect of the Orthopaedic academy.