Approaches to solving health disparities: panel reflections.

The articles point out that disparities related to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, generation, and geography are closely intertwined. Disentangling this web could be useful for developing more tailored interventions, but it is not critical for making progress in reducing racial disparities. For example, Ochoa and Nash3 discuss their work with the statewide Coalition for Health of Arkansans Today, which advocated spending tobacco settlement agreement funds on health programs. These programs included tobacco-prevention and -cessation programs, Medicaid expansions, public health infrastructure, and a hypertension initiative for minority residents. Only 1 of these efforts focused on minority residents, but most of the investments will serve the health needs of low-income minority residents.