•Despite these significant successes, we want to make health disparities a much bigger focus for our entire agency

•The Futures Initiative provides an opportunity for CDC’s OMH, its partners, and the rest of CDC to do more, faster, to eliminate health disparities in the United States.

•I know there has been concern about how Futures will impact the Office of Minority Health. CDC’s executive leadership teams is examining ideas to strengthen – not weaken – its current efforts and activities. We want to place the Office of Minority Health where it can have optimal impact and this summer we held a conference call with over 30 external partners to get their input.

•One visible manifestation of this expanded effort: At each senior staff meeting, we go center by center, highlighting one particular program a month that is addressing health disparities in a direct way and identifying what lessons can we can learn from that and how we can utilize those lessons to improve our programs across the board.

•This spring CDC held a media conference on Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities Focusing on Heart Disease and HIV/AIDS

•First Conference on Increasing the Number of American Indian, Alaska Native, & Native Hawaiian Professionals in public health careers. (July 20 in Atlanta)

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Source: Improving Health, Eliminating Disparities, Oct. 27, 2004 – GerberdingMorehousePrimaryCareConference2b