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Government Commits New Funds to Study Minority Health Issues
Research on minority physical and mental health conditions has lagged behind research on nonminority populations. A bill signed by President Clinton last month seeks to remedy that by creating a new NIH center devoted to research on minority health issues.
With a price tag of $100 million for Fiscal 2001, a bill signed by President Bill Clinton last month is designed to expand the information on groups determined to have higher rates of diseases, mortality, and morbidity than those of the general population. The bill mentions that this applies to racial and ethnic minorities and people from Appalachia but recognizes that other population groups may have health disparities also.
The new law will elevate the current Office of Research on Minority Health at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to a national center. Its mandate is to fund basic, clinical, and behavioral research on illnesses, including mental and substance abuse disorders that have higher prevalence rates among specific population groups or where the risk factors are different or unknown in those groups.
The center will also fund research to fill in gaps on issues where there are insufficient data on minority populations.
Congress passed the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education Act of 2000 (S 1880) in October. The bill had languished in the Senate for nearly a year after being introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).
The new center will also support medical training of researchers from populations known to have health-related disparities, according to the bill.
"The Center promises to help all Americans who bear the burden of health disparities regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, or geographic location," said Clinton in a press statement.
The legislation also authorizes the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to conduct and fund activities and research to measure health disparities and identify their causes and remedies.
In addition, the new law authorizes the Health Resources and Services Administration to support research and demonstration projects to train health professionals to reduce health care disparities.
"Eliminating disparities will require additional research and new approaches, but in the process of addressing the health needs of our most vulnerable populations, we will improve the nation’s health care system for everyone," said Clinton.
The text of the law can be accessed on the Web by visiting <www.thomas.gov> and searching on "S 1880."