Racial disparities in health care and health outcomes are a disturbing feature of the American health care system. Efforts to reduce or ameliorate these disparities must be informed by an understanding of the factors that underlie and contribute to them. The papers in this issue are based on a recent conference that was held at the University of Chicago to address this problem. Socioeconomic st...

Alarming disparities in population health and wellness in the United States have led to multidisciplinary research efforts to create health equity. Identifying disparities, elucidating the etiological bases of disparities, and implementing solutions to eliminate disparities are part of the U.S. national health agenda. Racial and ethnic disparities have been identified throughout the cancer cont...

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are well documented and can be discussed in 3 broad categories: health system factors, patient-level factors, and patient/provider interaction. Clinicians and others working in health care and related fields are knowledgeable about disparities in health, but the general US population is not. Racial/ethnic disparities are most striking in life expecta...

background: the present study was conducted to assess the trend of geographical disparities in child and maternal mortality rates in 20 districts of east azerbaijan, in the northwest of iran, between 1999 and 2013.   methods: data on to health indicators between 1999 and 2013, extracted from population registry panels (zij), was made available for the study by the east azerbaijan health center....

Research suggests that significant health disparities exist among the gay and lesbian population in the United States. These disparities impact both the shortand long-term health outcomes of this population. This study first provides a current literature review of available research on gay and lesbian health disparities and organizes these findings according to health topic. The paper then inve...

BACKGROUND Health disparities are a persistent problem in many high-income countries. Health policymakers recognize the need to develop systematic methods for documenting and tracking these disparities in order to reduce them. The experience of the U.S., which has a well-established health disparities monitoring infrastructure, provides useful insights for other countries. MAIN BODY This arti...