Whereas the origin of National Minority Health Month is National Negro Health Week, established in 1915 by Dr. Booker T. Washington; Whereas the theme for National Minority Health Month in 2018 is Partnering for Health Equity ; Whereas the Department of Health and Human Services has set goals and strategies to advance the safety, health, and well-being of the people of the United States; Whereas a study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, entitled The Economic Burden of Health Inequalities in the United States , concludes that, between 2003 and 2006, the combined cost of health inequalities and premature death in the United States was $1,240,000,000,000; Whereas African American women were as likely to have been diagnosed with breast cancer as non-Hispanic White women, but African American women were almost 41 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than non-Hispanic White women between 2011 and 2015; Whereas African American women lose their lives to cervical cancer at twice the rate of non-Hispanic White women; Whereas African American men are 60 percent more likely to die from a stroke than non-Hispanic White men; Whereas Hispanics have higher rates of end-stage renal disease caused by diabetes, and are 40 percent more likely to die of diabetes, than non-Hispanic Whites; Whereas the HIV diagnosis rate among Hispanic men is more than 3 times the HIV diagnosis rate among non-Hispanic White men; Whereas the HIV diagnosis rate among Hispanic women is more than 4 times the HIV diagnosis rate among non-Hispanic White women; Whereas, in 2016, although African Americans represented only 12 percent of the population of the United States, African Americans accounted for 44 percent of HIV infections; Whereas, in 2015, African American youth accounted for an estimated 55 percent, and Hispanic youth accounted for an estimated 24 percent, of all new HIV infections among youth in the United States