Using REAL Data to Address Disparities

Founded in 1989, the Metro Community Provider Network is a nonprofit organization in the Denver Metro area that provides medical and health education services to underserved communities. Over the years, MCPN has grown to include 10 sites and several community-based case management programs and has one of the largest population bases of any community health center in Colorado. With the goal of better serving disparate communities, MCPN began collecting race and ethnicity data from patients receiving diabetes case management services. The diabetes program links patients' race and ethnicity data with clinical data and assesses the results every six months. Through this analysis, MCPN has learned that the Hispanic and black patients they serve have a higher prevalence of diabetes than other racial or ethnic groups. Data collection also showed MCPN staff that more than 60 percent of its diabetic patients self-identify as Hispanic or Latino. To better serve this population, the organization hired bicultural and bilingual staff to provide Spanish health education programs that integrate culturally appropriate recipes into the discussion about diabetes.