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...

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...

In order to understand the role of oblique retinal image disparities in the perception of stereoscopic depth, we measured the depth perceived from random dot stereograms in which phase disparities were introduced in a selected band of stimulus orientations. A band of orientation was defined by a center orientation that ranged from 7.5 (near vertical) to 82.5 o[rientation]deg and by a bandwidth ...

BACKGROUND Americans remain under-informed about cancer and other health disparities and the social determinants of health (SDH). The news media may be contributing to this knowledge deficit, whether by discussing these issues narrowly or ignoring them altogether. Because local media are particularly important in influencing public opinion and support for public policies, this study examines th...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of home smoking bans in the United States has increased overtime, but educational disparities have persisted. Little research has explored potential associations between tobacco control policies and disparities by socioeconomic status in home smoking bans. We examined educational disparities in home smoking bans in the United States from 1995 to 2007 and investigated t...

Disparities in health and healthcare are a major concern in the United States and worldwide. Approaches to alleviate these disparities must be multifaceted and should include initiatives that touch upon the diverse areas that influence the healthcare system. Developing a strong biomedical workforce with an awareness of the issues concerning health disparities is crucial for addressing this issu...

BACKGROUND We used the baseline data collected for the Well-integrated Screening and Evaluation for Women Across the Nation (WISEWOMAN) participants to provide a snapshot of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk on enrollment and to address racial/ethnic disparities in the following CVD risk factors: body mass index (BMI), systolic and diastolic blood pressure, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and to...

There has been a long-standing debate about the mechanisms underlying the perception of stereoscopic depth and the computation of the relative disparities that it relies on. Relative disparities between visual objects could be computed in two ways: (a) using the difference in the object's absolute disparities (Hypothesis 1) or (b) using relative disparities based on the differences in the monoc...

The literature reviewed earlier in this report demonstrates that evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare is persuasive and remarkably consistent across a range of health conditions and procedures, and cannot be fully explained by differences in access to care, such as insurance status. Moreover, the literature suggests several sources for these disparities. This evidence, howeve...