Current Projects
Latino Health Issues Forum In partnership with the RAND Gulf States Policy Initiative, CHER hosted a half day meeting in October for health care providers and researchers to share their ideas and vision for improving the health and health care system for the Latino community of New Orleans. Representatives from hospitals, non-profit agencies, physicians, universities, the health insurance and business communities identified and discussed issues which would lend themselves to future participatory research activities. To view a summary of the issues identified click on Forum Summary Pilot Study Conducted by CHER
Submitted August 2007 With funding from the Tulane Research Enhancement Funds CHER is conducting a pilot study to investigate the barriers to and facilitators of health care access for the rapidly growing Latino population residing in the metropolitan New Orleans area. The pilot study will establish benchmarks for longitudinal analyses of progress in reducing disparities in health care access for the New Orleans Latino population. The pilot will adapt a set of measures derived from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in their 2006 National Healthcare Disparities Report. By employing AHRQ’s approach to evaluate and eliminate health disparities, New Orleans will be able to compare their data with national information. Participating faculty are from the School of Medicine, Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the Departments of Economics and Sociology. The project will sample 200 Latinos from the metropolitan New Orleans area, 50 will be identified by specific health clinics chosen which have made a concerted effort to reach out to the Latino community by virtue of their bi-lingual and/or bi-cultural staff, hours of operation and location and the remainder at identified at community events hosted by our community partners, the Hispanic Forum and Hispanic Business and Resource Center. A random sample of 10% of the survey collection will be monitored by the project coordinator for accuracy. A day long seminar is planned for the summer of 2008 to disseminate the results and explore future research questions. Members of the local and regional academic and provider community will be invited to attend as will representatives from the Office of Minority Health and AHRQ. The seminar will allow time for participant discussion to develop a research agenda to examine the implications of a medical home model and the planned redesign of the Louisiana health system. Click this link to download a printable version of the announcement (pdf). | 
