Podcast: Interview with Dr. Ronald Andersen

For this month's podcast, I interviewed Dr. Ronald Andersen who is the Wasserman Professor Emeritus of Health Services and Sociology at UCLA School of Public Health. This podcast provides an excellent overview of health disparity,the underserved, and issues associated with access to medical care.

You can listen to the podcast (WAV) here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/onlinefiles/Interviews/Andersen_Podcast_WAV.wav or as an MP3 here:https://s3.amazonaws.com/onlinefiles/Interviews/Andersen_Podcast_MP3.mp3

Dr. Andersen also provided other resources that may be of interest to podcast listeners:
1) The latest version of the Model:Ronald Andersen, Pamela Davidson, 2007 – Improving Access to Care in America: Individual and Contextual indicators in Ronald Andersen, Thomas Rice and Gerald Kominski (eds.) Changing the U.S.Health Care System: Key Issues in Health Services Policy and Management (3^rd. ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 3-31.

2) A review of national surveys of health services and origins of the Behavioral Model:
RM Andersen, 2008 -"National health surveys and the behavioral model of health services use." Medical Care, Jul;46(7):647-53

3) An online annotated bibliography on access to health care recently prepared for Oxford University Press: Ronald Andersen. “Access to Health Care.” In Oxford Bibliographies Online :Public Health. Ed. Lawrence Green. New York: Oxford University Press, February, 2011.

Vision clinic opens for underserved Latinos

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, the Illinois Eye Institute has started its Chicago Vision Outreach program to provide service to the underserved. Many of the patients in areas targeted by the program have not seen a regular doctor in years and have underlying or undiagnosed conditions such as glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy. Those targeted by the program are usually uninsured and would have to go to Cook county hospital in order to receive care. With waiting times of about 6 months to a year for an appointment, patients were somtimes gambling with diseases that could cause them to go blind before they received the care they needed.