A Note from the Editor

This quarter's regular issue of JHCPU begins with a Report from the Field introducing readers to the work of Meharry and other National Medical Association health care personnel in Haiti immediately following the devastating earthquake that struck in early 2010. Dr. Rahn K. Bailey, of Meharry, and colleagues, brought vital supplies and even more vital expert care to people who were in the greatest imaginable need.

The four themes of this issue are Education, Latino and American Indian Health Care, Primary Care and Hospitals, and Health Care Finances and Economics. The ACU Column for this issue concerns migrant health care and fits well with the articles on the health of backstretch workers at racetracks by Castañeda et al., and the work on migrant seasonal farmworkers by Emmi et al.

The article by Beal and Hernandez stands out because of the light it throws in federally qualified community health centers, and specifically on the importance of having a regular primary care provider. The article by Hasnain-Wynia et al. is remarkable for the amount of health disparity data that the authors are able to explain in terms of quality differences between sites where care was received (specifically with respect to hospitals).

Accompanying the regular issue is the second volume in our set on the Social Determinants of Children's Health, produced with the generous support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Volume I—Global Perspectives appeared in November of last year (JHCPU 20.4 Suppl). Volume II—The Developed World, which accompanies this issue (JHCPU 21.2 Suppl), concerns immigrant, minority, and other low-income populations of children in the developed world. Together these volumes provide an invaluable portrait of the social determinants of children's health in geographically and sociodemographically diverse regions of the world in the early 21st century. The Guest Editors for the Kellogg series are Gillian Barclay, DrPH, DDS, MPH and Camara Jones, MD, PhD, MPH.