Third Blog Entry: National Minority Health Month- April 2015

Blog Three

National Minority Health Month- April 2015

It's the end of April 2015. As we await the beginning of May, let's look at a couple of facts associated with Minority Health Month April 2015.

• Fact 1: Dr. Booker T. Washington, the founder of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, launched in 1915 the National Health Improvement week that later became known as the National Negro Health Week the forerunner of the current National Minority Health Month.

• Fact 2: On April 17, 2015 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) held a summit entitled "National Negro Health Week to National Minority Health Month: 100 Years of Moving Public Health Forward" commemorating the vision of Dr. Washington.

• Fact 3: The focus of National Minority Health Month is to increase awareness about health disparities that exist among African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Asian/Pacific Islanders.

• Fact 4: Work on eliminating health disparities remains a health priority. Health disparities have resulted in adverse health effects. For example, the life expectancy of African American male and female babies born in 2011 were respectively 72.2 and 78.2 years compared to 76.6 and 81.3 years for Euro American male and female babies. It's going to take all of us working together to eliminate health disparities.

Mark Your Calendar

Pittsburgh Black Nurses in Action (PBNIA)
Seventh Annual Evelyn Paige Parker Scholarship Brunch
Sat., June 20, 2015,
Le Mont Restaurant
Sources: http://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/observances/BookerT.html#History
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr63/nvsr63_03.pdf