Race, ethnicity and preventive services: no gains for Hispanics.

Three years ago, the Clinton administration initiated multiple efforts to identify and eliminate health disparities among various populations, including ethnic minority groups. Recent findings from the Community Tracking Study Household Survey show that between 1997 and 1999 there was an increase in the percentage of white and African American persons receiving preventive care-such as mammography screening among women and physicians counseling cigarette smokers to quit-but that there was no such increase in preventive measures for Hispanics. If policy makers want to remove disparities in health status based on race and ethnicity, they need to promote preventive care for minorities and monitor progress by regularly measuring preventive care indicators. This Issue Brief focuses on change in key preventive care indicators between 1997 and 1999.