ABOUT

NECHE WAS Established in April 2000, it is a regional partnership of stakeholders working to eliminate ethnic, racial and linguistic health disparities. The Coalition is successor to the New England Latino Health Data Consortium. This consortium emerged from the Data Working Group of the New England Latino Health Initiative, a planning group convened by Region One of the U.S. Office of Health and Human Services, coordinated by the Regional Minority Health Consultant, who is the representative of the HHS Office of Minority Health.

The current mission of the Coalition is to improve the collection, analysis and utilization of data to accurately reflect the demographics of New England and more effectively inform policy to address health needs and eliminate ethnic, racial, and linguistic health disparities, in keeping with the goals of Healthy People 2010. While improved data collection is the essential first step to understanding and addressing health disparities, the Coalition's mission ultimately aims at achieving equity in health and health care. The Coalition is governed by a steering committee with stakeholders from each of the New England states. Steering committee members stakeholders include community-based organizations, independent researchers, academic researchersinstitutions and state department of health officials, among others, but the by-laws assure that community based organizations will have the majority of seats.

An interim executive director manages daily operations for the presently unincorporated association. The Latin American Health Institute, Inc. (LHI) in Boston, Massachusetts serves as the fiscal agent, and hosts the Coalition's Research and Policy Institute. The ALANA Community Organization in Brattleboro, Vermont serves as the Coalition's current temporary headquarters and hosts the Coalition's Capacity Building Institute. In addition to volunteer support Coalition staff (part-time contractors) includes a public health development specialistresearcher based at the Research and Policy Institute and a constituent services manager at the Capacity Building Institute.

NECHE provides technical assistance and related products to state and federal policy makers; minority and minority-serving community-based organizations; academic institutions, particularly those with schools of public health; and independent public health researchers; organizes symposia; and contributes to research and policy development to address health disparities. An essential role of NECHE is to bring to the public and academic sectors together with community based leadership, to assure that minority communities have an effective voice in the development of public health policy in the region.

The application of NECHE technical assistance and consumption of its product line enhances stakeholders' effectiveness to deliver services or advocate for changes in services that reduce, if not eliminate, disparities.

Technical assistance includes, but is not limited to,

• conducting public health research (basic and causative);
• providing data/research expertise
• training in data collection, analysis and reporting;
• redefining existing data sets;
• determining the applicability of data sets; and
• conducting assessments
• data utilization
• technology
• organizational development

NECHE products include:

• Review of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control proposal to standardize data elements in disease surveillance and other national data systems (called Common Information for Public Health Electronic Reporting, or CIPHER).
• Symposium proceedings: "Who Counts? The Classification and Application of Race and Ethnicity in Public Health Data," 06 December 2002 at Northeastern University. NECHE organized this symposium with the support of HHS OMH, the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust, and other partners
• Publication: "Racial & Ethnic Identification Practices in Public Health Data Systems in New England" by MB Laws, RA Heckscher. Public Health Reports. 2002; 117(1):50-61.)
Presentations at various conferences including an Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association and the New England Minority Health Conference.