Ohio's LOCAL conversations on ending health disparities

PROBLEM/ISSUE TO BE CONSIDERED: In response to the National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities (NPA), the Ohio Commission on Minority Health (OCMH), an autonomous state agency created in 1987 to address health disparities and improve the health of minority populations in Ohio, sponsored a statewide initiative to help guide health equity efforts at the local and state levels. UNDERLYING ISSE/KEY FACTORS: To address the issue of health equity, OCMH sponsored a series of nineteen Local Conversations on Minority Health throughout the state. The purpose of these gatherings was to carry out community-wide discussions on local health disparities in which health needs could be identified and prioritized from the community's perspective, and strategies could be generated toward local action plans to address minority health needs. Sixteen of the Local Conversations were geographically-based and were held in the state's large and small urban regions. In addition, three statewide ethnic health coalitions convened ethnic-specific Local Conversations for Latino, Asian American, and Native American groups which brought in representatives from these populations across the state. RECOMMENDATIONS: Based on evaluation results, OCMH's willingness to engage residents in the process of identifying their perceived health issues through dialogue is a model that can be replicated because it has proven to be a positive and productive approach to engage communities in culturally specific conversations and actions through Community Based Participatory Research, policy development, and making systemic changes by involving the key stakeholders in meaningful ways in all stages of the process.