Prepared Remarks of Dennis Williams
Deputy Administrator, Health Resources and Services Administration
Washington, D.C.
September 21, 2002
As the Deputy Administrator at the Health Resources and Services Administration,
I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak to this National Rural
Women’s Health Conference. On behalf of HRSA Administrator Betty
Duke and the entire HRSA family, I welcome you to the Nation’s
Capital. We are extremely proud to be a part of this extraordinary effort.
Many thanks to all the wonderful folks at Penn State for their work
to make this conference happen. And special thanks to Wanda Jones from
HHS’ Office of Women’s Health, Debbie Maiese (pronounced Mays)
and her staff at HRSA’s Office of Women’s Health, Marcia Brand
from HRSA’s Office of Rural Health Policy and everyone involved
on the conference advisory board for their many contributions to this
conference. And, of course, thanks to all of you for the fine work you
do everyday to improve the health of America’s rural women. You
play a key role in HRSA’s efforts to make quality health care available
to all those women who need it most.
HRSA is a longstanding leader in the field of women’s health.
We provide services for rural, migrant and immigrant women; homeless
women; women living with HIV/AIDS; and pregnant women. In FY 2001, we
invested $1.4 billion in women’s health. In all that we do, we
work to promote good health and healthy lifestyles for all women.
It is our contention that improving health care access for women can
dramatically impact the health and welfare of an entire community. Why?
Because, in most families, women make the major decisions about health
care and are traditionally the ones who take care of other family members
who become ill. Yet, nearly 17 percent of women under the age of 65
do not have health insurance, and many more women are underinsured.
These are the women HRSA serves.
Today HRSA is embarked on one of the most exciting periods in the agency’s
20-year history. President Bush has put HRSA at the heart of an unprecedented
push to increase direct health care to uninsured and underinsured Americans.
These initiatives are at the absolute heart of HRSA’s current and
future efforts to expand access to health care and they will have tremendous
impact as we all work to close the health disparities gap for women
in geographically isolated or rural areas.
The first initiative is President Bush’s five-year plan to create
new and expand existing Health Centers in urban and rural America. The
President’s Health Centers Initiative aims to increase the annual
number of patients served to 16 million by 2006, up from just over 10
million currently, and many of those served will be from rural America.
The President’s long-term plan is to add 1,200 new and expanded
health center sites over five years and ultimately double the number
of patients treated at them.
These Health Center increases have great significance for women. Each
year, more than 5.3 million women who are at or below the poverty line
receive primary care services through our Community Health Centers in
both urban and rural areas. Women receiving care at these sites have
more up-to-date mammograms and Pap smears than women nationwide, a truly
impressive fact.
And, this month -- Health in Aging Month – at selected community
health center sites, including many rural locations, around the nation,
HRSA is collaborating with the Administration on Aging to encourage
geriatric education centers and area agencies on aging to sponsor a
variety of health education activities and services for elderly patients.
The second presidential initiative involves reforms at the National
Health Service Corps to help the Corps improve their service to America’s
medically underserved and get more clinicians to “front-line”
areas of greatest need.
Just a few months ago, to meet the need for well-prepared clinicians
able to respond to national crises, Secretary Thompson announced the
launch of NHSC’s “Ready Responders.” These Ready Responders
-- 40 highly skilled Commissioned Officer physicians and dentists --
will spend most of their time in health professional shortage areas,
often found in rural parts of the Nation. They also will receive special
training and will be ready at a moment’s notice to deploy to medical
emergencies nationwide.
The President’s third initiative at HRSA is called the Healthy
Communities Innovation Initiative. It’s a new interdisciplinary
effort that will bring together experts from throughout HHS to focus
on ways to prevent asthma, diabetes, and obesity. These three chronic
conditions are among the fastest growing in the United States and present
severe problems in many minority communities and especially among women.
In addition to these initiatives, Secretary Thompson has also charged
us with finding ways to strengthen health care and social services in
rural America. It is a topic that he feels deeply about, as the son
of a small town in rural Wisconsin and an ex-governor. He recently released
the HHS Rural Task Force report , “One Department, Serving Rural
America,” underscoring his commitment to improving health and human
services in rural communities.
Now let me give you a few highlights of some things already underway
at HRSA to improve health care for all women.
HRSA and Women’s Health
HRSA works closely with states and local communities to meet many critical
challenges in maternal and child health. Our goal is to create a seamless,
community-based comprehensive system of health care for America’s
women and children that integrates health, social, education, mental
health, and other services in efficient, cost-effective ways.
In fact, our Maternal and Child Health Block Grant programs serves
some 4.3 million women, of whom 2.3 million are pregnant. Through our
Healthy Start program, we’ve also made great strides in our efforts
to increase prenatal care and reduce infant mortality.
Bright Futures for Women’s Health and Wellness is a HRSA initiative
focused on improving the health status of women across the lifespan.
The goals are to increase women’s use of clinical preventive services
by encouraging them to share in decision-making with their health providers,
to increase use of evidence-based guidelines among practitioners, and
to build health promotion systems community-wide.
Promoting healthy behaviors among women is the focus of several current
HRSA-supported demonstration grant programs. We’re looking at ways
to screen for alcohol use and depression during pregnancy and improve
care for pregnant women experiencing domestic violence.
HRSA’s Ryan White Care Act program provides primary care and social
services for women, infants, children, youth and families living with
HIV/AIDS. In FY 2001, we delivered care and services to more than 53,000
clients. This number is expected to grow as the face of the AIDS epidemic
changes. In 2000, 25 percent of all new HIV cases were among women.
That same year, 33 percent of all CARE Act clients were women, an increase
from 29 percent in 1997.
HRSA also works to increase the participation of women and underrepresented
minorities in the health profession workforce. Today, nearly 44 percent
of medical students are women. The increased presence of women in the
dental profession as well as in public health helps enhance awareness
and adds greatly to our ability to increase cultural competence in health
care.
“Healthy Women Build Healthy Communities” is the guiding
principle of HRSA’s women’s health activities and our Office
of Women’s Health provides a cross-cutting and unifying focus for
all our programs concerned with women’s health and wellness. The
Office of Women’s Health recently launched its new Web site, which
I’d like to encourage you to visit. It’s at www.hrsa.gov/womenshealth
. The Office was also instrumental in the recent publication of Women’s
Health USA 2002, the first annual report on the health status of America’s
women, available from the HRSA Information Center at 1-888-ASKHRSA.
I hope these few highlights give you an idea of the broad scope of
effort we undertake everyday at HRSA to meet the needs of some of the
Nation’s most vulnerable individuals and families. You can be sure
that improving care for women living in rural America is and will continue
to be a top priority.
Working together we can remove the barriers women continue to face
in the health care arena.
The bottom line is clear: thousands of women in rural America are counting
on us to give them the best care we can provide.
I look forward to this dialogue. Thank you.
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