Children's Defense
Fund & Aetna Eliminate Disparities in Children's Health
The Aetna
Foundation and the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) recently
announced a groundbreaking project aimed at identifying and
eliminating disparities in health for minority children.
The focus on pediatrics is unique—most previous
efforts to eliminate health disparities have focused on adults,
especially regarding cardiac, cancer and stroke prevention
and care. Aetna, a leader in addressing health disparities,
has awarded CDF a grant of $225,000 over two years to support
the project.
“For Aetna, this is not just a philanthropic
issue. It is a central objective for our business,” said
Aetna Chairman and CEO, John W. Rowe, M.D. “For the past
two years, we have leveraged our information and research capabilities
to determine how to best address disparities in our member
population. With CDF as our partner, we have a tremendous opportunity
to expand these efforts and fully explore the removal of barriers
necessary for improving the health status of children.”
The Aetna/CDF project will seek to determine the
extent of disparities in health between minority and white
children, especially the disparities between minority and white
children of similar incomes and/or health insurance status.
Working with doctors, nurses, researchers, advocates and others
in the health care field, the project will identify the most
promising methods of intervention for closing the gaps between
groups of children.
“The Children's Defense Fund is proud to
be joining Aetna in combating the racial disparities in children's
health,” said Marian Wright Edelman, president of CDF. “Every
child deserves a healthy start in life, but America has not
invested the resources or shown the commitment to making sure
that minority and poor children have the same access to and
standard of care that all other children have. This partnership
between the Children's Defense Fund and Aetna will produce
the kind of evidence and concrete steps that can result in
the reduction of disparities among children based on race.
When racial disparities in children finally disappear, another
roadblock to equal opportunity and success will be removed.”
Because the project is the first of its kind to
focus on children, it is likely to produce a wealth of valuable
new findings on how to address disparities among children at
the local level. Project elements will include original analysis
of survey data to quantify health disparities, identification
and dissemination of best practices, convening of leaders in
the field, and development and implementation (especially at
the local level) of action plans that incorporate the best
practices.
Founded as Aetna's independent charitable and philanthropic
arm more than three decades ago, the Foundation has taken a
leadership role in working to address racial and ethnic disparities.
In 2003, the company provided nearly $3 million in funding
to programs focused primarily on addressing disease prevention
and disparities in health.
The mission
of the Children's Defense Fund is to Leave No Child Behind ® and
to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair
Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful
passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and
communities.#
For more information about Aetna, visit the
company's Web site at http://www.aetna.com