That's what A. Glenn Nevels believes, and it's a reason the 56-year-old Akron man volunteers with Brother to Brother, a Summit County project begun in 2001 to increase early detection and testing for prostate cancer, particularly among black men.

African-American men have one of the world's highest rates of prostate cancer and death from the disease. And it's just one of the diseases that hit blacks harder than whites.

Heart disease, stroke, HIV/AIDS and other types of cancer are often harsher -- and more deadly -- for African-Americans than any other race or ethnicity, to the point that the life expectancy of a black baby born in 2003 is 72.7 years, while a white baby is expected to live to 78.

But the picture isn't entirely bleak. On both the national and local levels, people are working to eliminate, or at least diminish, the health disparities between whites and various minority groups.

In 1986, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services established its Office of Minority Health. Ohio established a similar state office in 1987, calling it the Commission on Minority Health. Both agencies operate and fund initiatives aimed at eliminat = [100.0]ing disparities.

Summit County Health Commissioner Gene Nixon said few local health programs are focused on minority groups, but they are targeted in other ways.

The department, he said, emphasizes reaching out to low-income neighborhoods, and, by doing so, reduces social, racial and ethnic health disparities.

But experts say the most successful health programs have people from within a community reaching out to others there. Successful programs are sensitive to the cultures being served and, when necessary, are translated into the languages used there.

In the Brother to Brother program, for instance, coordinator Ronald Brown takes his message of prostate-cancer screening and early detection wherever men -- and particularly men of color -- can be found.

He goes to health fairs, workplaces and churches, offering a blood test to screen for the cancer, which kills black men at more than twice the rate it kills white men. At times, he offers the opportunity for men to get a rectal exam by a doctor.

Some men don't want to get tested because they don't want to find out about a disease that could affect their sex life, or they don't want a rectal exam, Brown said.

Brown started the project in 2001 with a grant from the Ohio Commission on Minority Health, and since then, grants from various organizations have funded it.

Nevels, who caught his cancer early through twice-yearly screenings, speaks frankly to other black men. ``Have you lost your mind?'' he has asked older men who have delayed getting prostate-cancer screenings.

Men should be screened for prostate cancer every year starting at age 40, but black men, especially those with a family history, should start earlier, Brown said.

Diane Wofsey, nurse coordinator of the hospital's Breast Care Center, began the Greater Stark County chapter of the ANGEL Network in the summer of 2005. ANGEL stands for African-American Women Nurturing and Giving Each Other Life.

The program's volunteers, or ``angels,'' are black women who share the message with other black women that they need to get yearly mammograms starting at age 40, so that if breast cancer develops, it can be detected early and potentially cured.

The ANGEL Network isn't the only program at Mercy Medical Center focusing on minority health. Two years ago, an immigrant health outreach program was created to address the needs of Stark's growing Hispanic population. The hospital hired nurse and Spanish-speaker Linda Piccolantonio to work with Hispanic patients.

As a result, Capuano said, the hospital's women's clinic, which was caring for five Hispanic women at the program's start, now sees about 100.

Capuano said the outreach program might have saved the lives of 10 women whose pregnancies could have developed serious complications if problems had not been detected through prenatal care at the women's clinic.

With that in mind, a team of African-American therapists and the Rev. Jeffrey Dennis, the pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church in West Akron, created a therapy practice in 1998 to help get mental health care to underserved people.

Tucked into a low-income neighborhood, the offices are simply furnished with Afrocentric art on the walls. Children who come to the small waiting area can play with African-American dolls and look at books featuring African-American characters. Adults can watch TV, read or study the prominently displayed plaques of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount -- a not-so-subtle acknowledgement of the role that faith plays in many clients' lives.

Although the agency is a separate corporation from the church, Dennis plays a key role in helping people have the confidence to get help. Often, Dennis said, someone in the community will call and ask for help with a problem that clearly also requires a mental health expert.

If people are nervous about going to a counselor, Dennis will accompany them on their first visit. He will also talk and/or pray with them afterward. He helps with medication compliance.

Dennis also has presented workshops at the church on the biblical perspective on stress and depression. After he talks, some of the therapists from Minority Behavioral Health will add the mental health component.

Two conditions that hit minorities hard are heart disease and diabetes. For example, African-American men are 20 percent more likely than white men to die from heart disease, and African-American adults are 2.4 times more likely than white adults to be diagnosed with diabetes.

At Phillips Chapel C.M.E. Church in Akron, churchgoer Gladys Werts has organized programs to promote health, including a line-dancing class, a walking club and presentations on eating well.

Roxanne LeGrair, a 53-year-old church member, taught the line-dancing classes and said others at the church seem more energetic and confident as a result.

Akron Community Health Resources, a community health center in Arlington Plaza where nearly half the patients are minorities, hopes to play a role in reducing health disparities by improving patient care.

Dr. Deepak Shah,a family physician at the center, said it has been participating in the federally funded Health Disparities Collaborative for two years.

This is cache, read story here