OBJECTIVES Racial/ethnic disparities in health in the U.S. have been well described. The field of "cultural competence" has emerged as one strategy to address these disparities. Based on a review of the relevant literature, the authors develop a definition of cultural competence, identify key components for intervention, and describe a practical framework for implementation of measures to addre...

BACKGROUND Wisconsin has a goal to eliminate health disparities by 2010, but there is no consistent standard used to evaluate progress. Methodological debates persist regarding using individual group change or relative comparisons to monitor disparities. OBJECTIVES To examine mortality disparities among racial/ethnic populations in Wisconsin using statistically significant changes in individu...

Attempts to explain disparities in access to health care faced by racial and ethnic minorities and other underserved populations often focus on individual-level factors such as demographics, personal health beliefs, and health insurance status. This article proposes an examination of these disparities-and an effort to redress them-through the lens of public health. Public health agencies can li...

Research and educational programs have the potential to improve health care. American Indians (AIs) suffer from considerable health disparities as compared with the general U.S. population, including significantly higher incidence and prevalence of preventable diseases like diabetes, alcoholism, and their complications. Underfunding of health programs, including the Indian Health Service, and l...

introduction: health care is one of the most important sectors in the development of each country and disparities in their distribution will reduce the level of development. the aim of this study was to examine the access to healthcare and degree of development in health care resources in the west of iran in 2011. method: this was a cross-sectional and retrospective study. the study setting was...

Clinical Medicine Insights: Women's Health is an international, open-access, peer-reviewed journal which considers manuscripts on all aspects of the diagnosis, management, and prevention of disorders specific to women, in addition to related genetic, pathophysiological, and epidemiological topics. Clinical Medicine Insights: Women's Health aims to provide researchers working in this complex, qu...

This paper compares black-white health disparities among state prisoners to disparities in the noninstitutionalized community to provide a more complete portrait of the nation's heath. We use data from the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities and the 2002 and 2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for incarcerated and noninstitutionalized adult (age...

BACKGROUND Racial and ethnic disparities in health care have been consistently documented in the diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of many common clinical conditions. There has been an acceleration of health information technology (HIT) implementation in the United States, with health care reform legislation including multiple provisions for collecting and using health information to improve a...

With Healthy People 2010 making the goal of eliminating health disparities a national priority, policymakers, researchers, medical centers, managed care organizations (MCOs), and advocacy organizations have been called on to move beyond the historic documentation of health disparities and proceed with an agenda to translate policy recommendations into practice. Working models that have successf...

Using data from the 1999-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (n ~ 46,000), this study documents income disparities in the age patterning of cardiovascular conditions across the lifespan in the U.S. The conditions were assessed from laboratory test results, self-reports of medications used to treat specific conditions, and anthropometric measurements, allowing us to capture whe...