Initiatives in Baltimore and California Address Minority Health Issues

• Baltimore: The Baltimore Examiner on Tuesday examined how Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore has recruited a top surgeon from Connecticut to specifically focus on breast cancer in black women. Dalliah Mashon Black, a former assistant professor of surgery at the Yale School of Medicine, is an expert in breast cancer tumor biology and cancer behaviors of women in racially and ethnically diverse populations, according to the Examiner. Mercy officials hope Black's expertise will spur interest from patients and help attract other top physicians to the hospital, spokesperson Dan Collins said (Brown, Baltimore Examiner, 5/6).
  
  
• Oakland, Calif.: Several Oakland physicians and medical groups on Tuesday joined efforts to launch the End the Asthma Attacks Now campaign, which will focus on blacks, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Nationally, blacks are 30 times more likely than whites to develop asthma and two to three times more likely to be hospitalized for the condition, according to the American Lung Association. As part of the campaign, the Bay Area Pediatrics Medical Group throughout the summer will host educational and informational sessions that promote prevention and management (Grady, San Jose Mercury News, 5/6).
  
  
• Sacramento, Calif.: Black-owned barbershops in the Sacramento area on Saturday participated in the national Power To End Stroke campaign by offering no-cost health screenings and educational material to their clients, the Sacramento Bee reports. The American Stroke Association organized the event in collaboration with Mercy General Hospital and the Diabetic Amputation Prevention Foundation (Sacramento Bee, 5/3).