Background: During the 2001 session of the General Assembly, proviso 9.50 was included in the fiscal year 2002 State Appropriations Bill. The proviso directed the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SC DHEC) to develop a plan to address coordination of services, the elimination of duplication and coordinating, of federal, state other resources toward improving the health status of racial and ethnic minorities in the state.

SC DHEC convened a broad-based Workgroup comprised of representatives of public and private agencies and stakeholders. The Workgroup, chaired by the Deputy Commissioner for Health Services and staffed by the Office of Minority Health, developed the Health Disparities Study Report, 2002. This report includes a recommendation to develop a statewide database of health disparity programs and initiatives targeting the minority community.

The Minority Health Disparity Initiatives Database was developed in conjunction with the Office of Minority Health and the Division of Biostatistics and Health GIS. This database allows researchers, government officials, community planners, and the general public to have access to and/or add minority health dispairity initiatives in South Carolina to the database.

This application was developed with the intention of being very user friendly and to: a) provide an easy to use form to enter a minority health initiative, b) provide an easy to use interface to search the database, and c) provide the search results of minority health initiatives in a quick efficient manner. There are several supporting pages which help the user better understand how to use the tool and provide additional examples, frequently asked questions (FAQ's), and links to related sites.

Your input is requested as to make further enhancements to the module which will increase ease of use and flexibility of adding, searching, and viewing the data. Please use the contact us link to the left of the page to enter your comments and ideas. Thank you for accessing and using this module.