Disparities in minority healthcare are so pervasive that many ethnic communities are oblivious to the risks they face. Last week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services took a step toward eliminating inequities in healthcare when Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced the department would award $85 million to community health organizations.

The awards, part of the department's Initiative to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health, will go to research institutions, healthcare professionals and community-based healthcare groups.

"African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska natives, and Asians and Pacific Islanders suffer an unequal burden of death and disease, despite improvements in the overall health of the general population over the past decade," Thompson said.

Asian Americans are at higher risk than whites for certain forms of cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis. Vietnamese women are five times more likely than whites to have cervical cancer and Chinese Americans are five times more likely to have liver cancer.

Yet Asian Americans are less likely to have a regular source of medical care. Eight percent of Asian-American children and 20 percent of adults lack a regular doctor, compared to 4 percent of white children and 15 percent of white adults.

"These awards demonstrate our commitment to making real progress to eliminate health disparities in this country," Thompson said.

The National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities provided $74.5 million while the Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health awarded 65 grants worth $10.5 million.

"To eliminate health disparities, all of us at NIH must continue to work together with our many research partners across the country to build a more collaborative biomedical and behavioral research enterprise of institutions and individuals from all populations that will benefit all Americans," NIH Director Elias Zerhouni said.

Government agencies are doing their part to curb disparities just as the business world's major healthcare firms begin reaching out to ethnic communities.

Aetna and the Aetna Foundation this year awarded more than $850,000 in research grants to organizations that test practical means of reducing racial disparities in healthcare.

In addition, the pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Pharmacia awarded more than $3 million in outcomes-based research grants to projects targeting diabetes, asthma and pain management.

"The evidence of the damaging health consequences of racial and ethnic disparities in health care continues to be overwhelming," said Aetna CEO John W. Rowe.

For grant recipient Robert C. Like, director of the Center for Healthy Families and Cultural Diversity at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, racial disparities will remain until corporate America, the government and grass-roots organizations come together.

"The goal of moving toward 100 percent access and zero disparities for the nation's population requires collaborative partnerships between the private and public sector, academic medical centers and local communities,' Like said.