CORLISS MCKEEVER: Good morning. My name is Corliss McKeever, and I'm President and CEO of the African-American Health Coalition located in Portland, Oregon, and I really enjoyed the presentations this morning. One of the things that I think one of the presenters touched on a little bit that I'd like to hear more about or hopefully could at least consider it for next year's planning, and that's more of the qualitative information about the impact of obesity and physical activity on specifically African-American women. We heard a little bit about how providers bias on race and health, but I haven't heard anything about the impact of racism on health. And one of the things that we're working on through a program sponsored by REACH 2010, The Center For Disease Control, is called REACH, Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health. And in that project, we've done a lot of work working with the Regional Research Institute and Oregon Health Sciences University Center for Health Disparities, really hearing from the community because know that community problems require community solutions. So we do have programs that are centered in the beauty shop and really heard from the community, but I haven't heard a lot about the impact of race and racism on health, and that's just a major issue that we have to address, and there's lots of literature to support it.

DEE BALDWIN: Okay, we're going to let Dr. Yawn (inaudible).

BARBARA YAWN: I just wanted to emphasize that by the participatory research concept and the translational research concepts, again, I think are so important, all of us working together and working directly with the community. Several people made pitches yesterday, and I'll make a real quick pitch that places like the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality are doing a lot of this funding of research. And it's almost as important as funding how rat mitochondria turn over a particular molecule, so I'm going to ask that we think policy-wise getting more of this research funded and accepted as good, high-quality research.

DEE BALDWIN: Dr. Wenger, would you like to?

NANETTE K WENGER: Let me emphasize one thing that the Society for Women's Health Research has emphasized for women in general, and the message was some things only a woman can do, and those things are to participate in clinical research studies. I want to extend that to saying some things only a minority woman can do, and that is to participate in the studies that will give information for minority women. In terms of the diet and exercise, there was an elegant study that was just published this past two weeks that looked at women around the time of menopause, and you know, that's the time when women tend to gain weight and develop all their risk factors. Well, these women were put into a very intensive diet and exercise program. They maintained it. They did not gain weight. The bad cholesterol, the LDL cholesterol, did not go up. Their glucose did not go up. They didn't develop the risk factors that many women develop around the time of menopause, and more recently, the thickening of the arteries that signifies disease did not occur in these women. A beautiful prevention model. Again, the women who volunteered for this trial were predominantly Caucasian, limiting the ability we have to translate this to other populations. So perhaps one of the other things that I would hope that the pastors' wives would do is to say to congregants, "We cannot get information on minority women to apply to minority women unless these women are in clinical research studies."

CHUCK LUCATICH: Hi, I'm Chuck Lucatich. I happen to be here with the Pennsylvania Task Force on Smoking, or Tobacco, actually, and Health Disparities, and there are a number of us here. Just two quick things. You showed a slide on the differential diagnosis between men and women reporting the same symptoms. I've read that study, read some of that. I would hope that somewhere, we could get that reference up so I think everyone here should read that study and read the information available. It's really very chilling. You're looking at me quizzically.

DEE BALDWIN: You're talking about the "New England Journal?"

CHUCK LUCATICH: Oh, okay. You know what I mean?

DEE BALDWIN: The "New England Journal" article?

CHUCK LUCATICH: The Journal article, yes. I've read that. That's a very good article, and I think everyone here should read that. Just a quick piece of thing. The 99-year-old lady with the MI, did she have a prior diagnose and did she survive?

DEE BALDWIN: She had a prior diagnosis, and she did survive. She died at 103.

JOAN CLAYTON DAVIS: I'm Joan Clayton Davis with the Academy for Educational Development and from Nashville, Tennessee. I noticed that on several of the slides, we talked about how we've increased awareness. But my question is about how do we move from awareness to behavior change that can impact the modifiable risk factors?

VIVIAN BERRYHILL: Let me address that. In most African-American communities, most African-American churches, you have family life centers. You have educational centers. And partnering with medical facilities, medical practitioners who would come in once a week, twice a week, to impart knowledge, to give ladies blueprints for how they can reduce their risk factors, that would be such a perfect opportunity, and we are on the threshold of doing that even right now. Thank you.

BARBARA YAWN: Just another quick comment. We have to keep remembering that our children are going to be where we're sitting in 20, 30, 40, 50 years; and we have all of these schools that have decided math, reading, and other things are more important to the exclusion of recess and any physical activity. And I don't know about you, but my brain works better when there's some blood going to it and not to the other end. And I think it's critically important we remind them that math is great, and I want the kids to be able to read and do math, but if they are not physically active, they're going to die young and that math and reading won't do them any good.

DEE BALDWIN: One last question. I said five minutes, and like I said, the panelists are going to be here. Members are going to be here, so you will have an opportunity to ask them individually. But one last thing (inaudible).

VICKI MAYS: Vicki Mays, UCLA. There are two points that I wanted to raise, and I want to raise them within the context of policy and advocacy. One is I learned somewhat tragically about the number of sudden cardiac deaths that occur, particularly in women of color. One of the things that there have been some studies to actually talk about the use of defibrillators and having them present, but what we have is kind of the Good Samaritan law that this is a device, and therefore, people are not covered. So I think if anything, if the pastor's group—because I know churches, for example, that want to have defibrillators there, but they have to worry about liability. So we need to really understand that that's something very important, and I'm hoping that someone will take that up because I think it's critical. And then, the second thing is, like I think it was last week on "Good Morning America," they had a commentary in which someone talked about the symptoms that are different for women. And I would advocate because, I mean I thought I was pretty educated; but when they started talking about, you know, nausea, vomiting, and sweats and things like that, I was very surprised. And I think everybody should, like, start who is out doing this kind of talk to start with talking about what some of those different symptoms are for women versus men so that every moment is a teachable moment. But it was a great panel. Thank you very much.