FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contacts:
In Honor of World Hepatitis Day Organizations in California
Launch Campaign to Encourage Primary Care Clinicians to Screen Patients
for Hepatitis C
(San Francisco, CA, July 28, 2015) – Today the California Academy of
Family Physicians, California Hepatitis Alliance (a program of Project
Inform) and the National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable launch the
“California Hepatitis C Clinicians’ Honor Roll” campaign. The Honor Roll
recognizes clinicians who sign a pledge to screen their adult patients
for hepatitis C in accordance with the United States Preventive Services
Task Force (USPSTF) guidelines. To view the USPSTF hepatitis C
screening guidelines, visit:
http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspshepc.htm
According to the California Department of Public Health, 750,000
Californians are living with hepatitis C. Because this contagious liver
disease often remains asymptomatic for years and many providers and
patients commonly overlook testing, the vast majority of individuals are
unaware that they are infected.
Karen Smith, MD, MPH, Director of the California Department of Public Health notes,
“The best tools we have to reduce the human and economic costs of
hepatitis C in California are to prevent new infections, screen people
at risk, and link those who are infected to care.”
The USPSTF recommends hepatitis C screening for:
- Adults born between 1945 through 1965
- Anyone with past or current history of injecting drugs
- Anyone who received a blood transfusion before 1992
- Long-term hemodialysis patients
- Anyone born to a mother infected with hepatitis C
- Anyone with a history of incarceration
- Anyone with past or current history of intranasal drug use (snorting drugs)
- Anyone who has received a tattoo from an unregulated source
- Anyone with other percutaneous exposures to blood
“Hepatitis C is a devastating disease. Unfortunately, the majority
of people with hepatitis C do not even know they are infected,” states
Ron Chapman, MD, MPH, family physician and past director and state
health officer for the California Department of Public Health.
”Family doctors, primary care, and other physicians and care team
members have a critical role to play to identify these people and save
their lives.”
Hepatitis C is the leading cause of catastrophic liver damage,
cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver transplants, and hepatocellular
carcinoma is the fastest growing cancer in the United States. While the
virus remain undetected, causing potentially life-threatening liver
damage, individuals can unknowingly transmit the disease to others.
California clinicians can stop this silent epidemic.
This Honor Roll campaign is conducted in partnership with the California
Academy of Physician Assistants Foundation, California Department of
Public Health, California Medical Association Foundation, Network of
Ethnic Physician Organizations and San Francisco Medical Society.
For more information about the Honor Roll campaign, visit
http://www.familydocs.org/world-hepatitis-c-day-july-28
###
The
California Academy of Family Physicians (CAFP) is
the only organization solely dedicated to advancing the specialty of
family medicine in the state. Since 1948, CAFP has championed the cause
of family physicians and their patients. CAFP is critically important to
primary care. With a strong collective voice of more than 9,200 family
physician, family medicine resident and medical student members,
the CAFP is the largest primary care medical society in California and
the largest chapter of the
American Academy of Family Physicians.
We focus on family physicians’ professional challenges and health
policy concerns through advocacy and education to expand access to
high-quality and cost-effective patient care for California. We are
committed to helping family physicians improve their everyday practice
lives by offering affordable evidence-based continuing medical
education, providing cost-saving practice management resources,
delivering practical approaches to practice transformation, and
fostering opportunities to promote the family medicine specialty and
ensure a strong and healthy primary care pipeline. For more information
about CAFP, visit
www.familydocs.org.
Founded in 2006, the
California Hepatitis Alliance (CalHEP), a program of Project Inform (
www.projectinform.org),
is an alliance of more than 100 organizations dedicated to reducing the
scope and consequences of the hepatitis B and C epidemics, which
disproportionately affect California’s ethnic communities and the
socioeconomically underserved. CalHEP includes among its membership
public health organizations, community-based organizations, clinics and
health care agencies, county hepatitis task forces, and others committed
to viral hepatitis prevention, care, advocacy, and education. Committed
to culturally competent public education and awareness, CalHEP’s work
focuses on advocating for sound policies; promoting evidence-based
education; and broadening access to services. For more information
about CalHEP, visit
www.calhep.org.
The
National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable (NVHR) is a
broad coalition working to fight, and ultimately end, the hepatitis B
and hepatitis C epidemics. We seek an aggressive response from
policymakers, public health officials, medical and health care
providers, the media, and the general public through our advocacy,
education, and technical assistance. NVHR believes an end to the
hepatitis B and C epidemics is within our reach and can be achieved
through addressing stigma and health disparities, removing barriers to
prevention, care and treatment, and ensuring respect and compassion for
all affected communities. For more information about NVHR, visit
www.nvhr.org.
Source:
http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=9dd22df1cf3a741391755d010&id=7928f2321c&e=227fe74971
