Partnership for Healthy People 2010

The AMA has joined with the federal Healthy People 2010 initiative to eliminate ethnic and racial disparities in health care.

Editorial. Jan. 15, 2001.

At the AMA Interim Meeting last month, the Association formally pledged its support of the Dept. of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2010 initiative, especially in the area of eliminating ethnic and racial disparities in care.

This is an ambitious goal, to solve a deeply rooted problem that threatens to shorten the lives of millions of Americans. It won't be met until the message raising awareness about it -- and the methods on how to improve the situation -- filter down to the one-on-one interactions between patient and physician. Organized medicine can be a valuable partner in this and other related efforts.

Already, the AMA has a firm foundation on which to build. In recent years, it has become involved in how physicians can more effectively communicate with a wide spectrum of patients. It has produced a 460-page Cultural Competence Compendium (no longer available); download the section on underserved populations in pdf format (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/upload/mm/40/04a.pdf). The AMA also has taken on the issue of improving patient medical literacy -- millions of patients cannot understand even basic health care directions -- as a significant area of study and physician education. These AMA activities provide a general framework about doctor-patient interactions that dovetail with the goals of Healthy People 2010, which addresses progress on a multitude of specific health conditions. [...]

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