Objective.To identify what consumers want to know about nursing homes (NHs) before choosing one and to determine whether information preferences vary across race/ethnicity. Data Sources/Study Setting. Primary data were collected in Greater Boston ( January 2013-February 2014) from community-dwelling, white, black, and Latino adults aged 65+ and 40-64 years, who had personal/familial experience with a NH admission or concerns about one. Study Design. Eleven focus groups and 30 interviews were conducted separately by race/ethnicity and age group. Principal Findings. Participants wanted detailed information on the facility, policies, staff, and residents, such as location, staff treatment of residents, and resident conditions. They wanted a sense of the NH gestalt and were interested in feedback/reviews from residents/families. Black and Latino participants were especially interested in resident and staff racial/ethnic concordance and facility cultural sensitivity. Latino participants wanted information on staff and resident language concordance. Conclusions. Consumers want more information about NHs than what is currently available from resources like Nursing Home Compare. Report card makers can use these results to enhance their websites, and they should consider the distinct needs of different racial/ethnic groups. Future research should test methods for collecting and reporting resident and family feedback/reviews. Key Words. Nursing homes, consumer information, public reporting, race/ ethnicityThe health care market has embraced public reporting, and The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) alone has report card websites for hospitals, home-health providers, nursing homes (NHs), dialysis facilities, and physicians, with more to come for other providers like hospice and inpatient

A state minority health policy report card may provide an important tool for evaluating and promoting state policies to reduce health disparities. This study develops criteria that can form the basis of such a state report card and assesses the performance of all fifty states on these measures. The results indicate wide variation among states, with geographic region being a significant predictor of performance on all four measures. Future research should be conducted on other predictors of state variation in minority health policy and connections between state policy and health outcomes for minorities.

No abstract

This article examines access to reproductive genetics services for low-income women and women of color. It explores implications of the use of reproductive technologies; access and barriers to general prenatal care and its impact on accessing reproductive-genetic services; the implications of obtaining reproductive genetic services through public programs and funding, especially as they relate to equal provision of services. The traditional barriers to reproductive-genetics services; the decision-making process involved in genetic counseling when Caucasians dominate the process of counseling people of color; financial/insurance barriers to care for low-and moderate-income clients are also addressed. Recommendations are made to address the problems and inequities.

Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health status and health care, a major focus of Healthy People 2010, remains on the national agenda and among the priorities for the administration of President George W. Bush. Even though the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities challenges the whole nation, individual states are on the front line of many initiatives and are often the focus of important policy efforts. In addition, it is important to focus on states because they are already responsible for much of the health and public health infrastructure, and several states have developed initiatives dating back to the release of Margaret Heckler's report on the gaps in health outcomes by race in 1985. This article makes the case for an outcome-oriented approach and provides a summary of lessons learned based upon preliminary investigations into constructing and applying two indices, the disparity reduction profile to measure effort and the disparity index to measure outcomes.