Office of Women’s Health Director Discusses Minority Women’s Health Summit
NPR's "Tell Me More" on Tuesday included a discussion with Wanda Jones, director of the HHS Office of Women's Health, about the agency's Minority Women's Health Summit in Washington, D.C. The summit, which concluded Sunday, included research presentations and sessions on specific diseases and conditions, community health coalitions and the effect of violence on health.
Jones said efforts to address minority health issues should account for characteristics of specific communities, adding, "[W]e can develop a cross-cultural approach that really is not one-size-fits-all." Jones said that language barriers, insurance status and unreliable transportation "are all circumstances in which we might have to get very, very specific because the barriers that women in these circumstance face may be way different."
The Office of Women's Health also is focusing on reducing communication barriers between minority women and physicians, Jones said. For example, in some cultures it is considered disrespectful to look a physician in the eye, and members of some cultures are hesitant to complain about pain, she said (Martin, "Tell Me More," NPR, 8/28).
Audio of the segment is available online.
Webcasts of some of the sessions are available online at kaisernetwork.org.