{"id":31742,"date":"2022-02-24T10:36:32","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T16:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31742"},"modified":"2022-02-25T18:00:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-26T00:00:37","slug":"proposal-would-fund-health-equity-liaisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=31742","title":{"rendered":"Proposal would fund health equity liaisons"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nebraska would use federal pandemic relief funds to facilitate the collection of health inequity data by several state commissions that serve the state\u2019s minority populations under a bill considered Feb. 23 by the Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Tony Vargas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under LB1267, sponsored by Omaha Sen. Tony Vargas, the state would appropriate $2.5 million in fiscal year 2023 from American Rescue Plan Act funds allocated to Nebraska to five state commissions. The bill would allocate $500,000 to each of the following entities to hire health equity liaisons:
\n\u2022 Commission on Indian Affairs;
\n\u2022 Commission on Latino-Americans;
\n\u2022 Commission on African American Affairs;
\n\u2022 Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing; and
\n\u2022 Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired.<\/p>\n

Each commission\u2019s liaison would work with the state Department of Health and Human Services, the University of Nebraska and other organizations to collect data and would be required to submit a report to the Legislature no later than Oct. 1, 2024. The report would outline recommendations to address health inequities for the population served by each respective commission.<\/p>\n

Vargas said DHHS has found that there are \u201cmoderate to significant disparities\u201d between white residents and people of color in Nebraska in health status, health coverage and ability to see a physician. These inequities put people at a greater risk of illness and death from COVID-19, he said.<\/p>\n

In addition, Vargas said, the pandemic \u201cexacted a steep toll\u201d on certain populations of people with disabilities and created new barriers to access to health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy providing this funding to the commissions, the goal is to have tangible recommendations for addressing health disparities that are specific to each constituency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kim Davis, advocacy specialist for the Nebraska Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, testified in support of LB1267 on behalf of the commission. She said the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated challenges faced by Nebraska\u2019s deaf and hard of hearing community, especially in medical settings.<\/p>\n

Social distancing requirements and limits on the number of people allowed in hospital rooms made effective communication even more difficult for deaf and hard of hearing patients, Davis said, because it hampered access to interpreters.<\/p>\n

Lazaro Spindola, former executive director of the Commission on Latino-Americans, also spoke in support of the proposal. Even before the pandemic, the state\u2019s Latino population suffered from high levels of poverty and limited access to good paying jobs, housing and health care, he said. The pandemic magnified the impact of those inequities, Spindola said, especially for individuals employed in industries deemed essential, such as meatpacking.<\/p>\n

National studies show that Latino populations may experience more severe cases of COVID-19 and have a higher mortality rate, he said, but Nebraska lacks similar state-level data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout this information, it becomes virtually impossible to create programs that will overcome the inequality,\u201d Spindola said.<\/p>\n

Representing the Commission on Indian Affairs, executive director Judi gaiashkibos also testified in favor of LB1267. All the state\u2019s commissions that serve minority populations face health disparities, she said, and the Indian commission would welcome additional funding to study ways to improve the situation.<\/p>\n

No one spoke in opposition to the proposal and the committee took no immediate action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nebraska would use federal pandemic relief funds to facilitate the collection of health inequity data by several state commissions that serve the state\u2019s minority populations under a bill considered Feb. 23 by the Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31729,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-31742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-appropriations","tag-sen-tony-vargas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/LB1267Vargas2-23-22a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31742"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31803,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31742\/revisions\/31803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}