African American and Hispanic Missourians trail behind whites when it comes to health indicators. The nonprofit Missouri Foundation for Health published reports Tuesday on the health disparities of the two minority groups.
The disparities can be pretty stark, for example: infant deaths occur more than twice as many times among African Americans than whites. And even though Hispanic Missourians are generally younger than blacks and whites, they have a higher rate of cholesterol.
Missouri Foundation for Health's policy associate Akeiisa Coleman says the fact that African Americans and Hispanic Missourians are more likely to be uninsured than whites plays a big part in the disparities.
"One of my takeaways from the report is that it's really important that we work on improving access to care,” Coleman said. “And one of the big barriers for people regularly getting primary care services is not having health insurance and not being able to pay for those services."
The foundation and the Missouri Health Equity Collaborative hosted a forum in Columbia on Tuesday to discuss the two reports.
