CDC Minority Health Office: 'Social Epidemiology'

Abstract

THE CDC's newly established Office of Assistant Director for Minority Health marks an expansion from the federal centers' traditional approach to health and disease into the less familiar realm of social epidemiology. This, in my view, is the CDC's new frontier, says Rueben Warren, DDS, MPH, DrPH, the CDC's assistant director for minority health. The office, set up in August 1988, strives to improve the health of all African-American, Hispanic-American, Native American, and Asian-American citizens, and the health of non-US citizens of similar ethnic and racial backgrounds where appropriate, such as migrant farm workers in the border states. People from these diverse groups suffer the highest incidence and prevalence of the most common preventable diseases, yet they remain the most difficult populations to reach. Gap Is Clear, Reasons Hazy A recent CDC study of excess mortality among black adults in the United States illustrates the striking gap between the black