Issue Briefs
Issue Briefs
The CMS Office of Minority Health Issue Briefs offer insight and examination into a variety of health and health disparity topics. The briefs summarize particular issues and examine policies that impact the quality of and access to health care for minority and disadvantaged populations. Issue Briefs evaluate CMS programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, to include recommendations and suggestions relating to the issue at hand.
The Path Forward: Improving Data to Advance Health Equity Solutions (PDF)
View the newly released report, which outlines the current state of health equity data collection across CMS programs, details progress to date in improving CMS data collection, and defines CMS’s future actions to continue to improve health equity data.
On the Front Lines of Health Equity: Community Health Workers (PDF)
This issue brief is the first released by CMS OMH on the importance of workforce profiles that may help advance health equity. The issue brief outlines the benefits of community health workers (CHWs) and how to plan and implement a new CHW program.
Asian American, Native Hawaiians & Pacific Islanders Fact Sheet (PDF)
View the newly released HHS Asian American, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders Fact Sheet, which includes population data and trends in this population's health insurance coverage. The fact sheet also provides information on trends among the individual ethnic groups.
Data to Improve Health Care for People with Disabilities (PDF)
This issue brief outlines data sources that health care organizations and researchers can use to better understand the impact that social determinants of health have on people with disabilities. It also provides data sources and examples of how data is useful in identifying opportunities for quality improvement in health care.
How Healthcare Providers Meet Patient Language Needs: Highlights of a Medscape Provider Survey (PDF)
Limited English proficiency can contribute to misunderstandings between patients and providers, obstacles to high quality of care, and negative clinical outcomes. This report summarizes the results of an online Medscape survey fielded in August 2013 that included questions about languages spoken by patients, strategies used to identify patient needs, and the use of language services to meet these needs.
Increasing the Physical Accessibility of Health Care Facilities (PDF)
One of the most prominent challenges for people with physical disabilities is overcoming the barriers to entering and navigating health care facilities. This brief provides an overview of why physical accessibility is important for people with disabilities, discusses laws enacted to promote accessibility, provides examples of national and state-level efforts to increase accessibility, and offers suggestions for improving physical accessibility of health care facilities on a broader scale.
Understanding Communication and Language Needs of Medicare Beneficiaries (PDF)
Communication and language barriers are associated with decreased quality of care and poor clinical outcomes, longer hospital stays, and higher rates of hospital readmissions. The brief presents data that can be used by providers, provider organizations, and health care stakeholders to better understand communication and language assistance needs of people enrolled in Medicare throughout the United States.
Page Last Modified:
09/06/2023 05:05 PM