Health disparities can negatively impact subsets of the population who have systematically experienced greater socioeconomic obstacles to health. Health disparities are pervasive across the United States and no single health care profession can tackle this national crisis alone. It is essential that all health care providers work collaboratively toward the overarching goal of systematically clo...

Both the life expectancy and the overall health of Americans have improved greatly over the last century, but not all Americans are benefiting equally from advances in health prevention and technology. There is compelling evidence that race and ethnicity correlate with persistent health disparities in the burden of illness and death. For example, compared with their white counterparts, black ba...

INTRODUCTION Few studies examined socioeconomic contributors to racial disparities in low birth weight outcomes between African-American and Caucasian adolescent mothers. This cross-sectional study examined the intersections of maternal racial status, age, and neighborhood socioeconomic status in explaining these disparities in low birth weight outcomes across a statewide sample of adolescent m...

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...

OBJECTIVE This article considers how the social psychology of intergroup processes helps to explain the presence and persistence of health disparities between members of socially advantaged and disadvantaged groups. METHOD Social psychological theory and research on intergroup relations, including prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, stigma, prejudice concerns, social identity threat, and...

Disparities. Challenges and Successes in Reducing Health Disparities. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2008. 46. Dow WH, Schoeni RF, Adler NE, Stewart J. Evaluating the evidence base: policies and interventions to address socioeconomic status gradients in health. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2010;1186:240–51. 47. Phelan JC, Link BG, Tehranifar P. Social conditions as fundamental causes of health i...

Race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status (SES) are associated with the use of Medicare services. In this article, the author juxtaposes disparities in health outcome measures (including death rates for heart disease, cancer, and stroke) with disparities in the use of elective services expected to improve health, and with disparities in the use of non-elective services associated with poor manage...

With much discussion about health disparities in Minnesota in recent years, there has been growing awareness about the inequities between rich and poor and between majority and minority groups. Attention also needs to be paid to the disparities between women who live in rural areas and those who live in urban parts of the state. Rural women are poorer, older and less likely to have adequate hea...

OBJECTIVES The study assessed the progress made toward reducing racial and ethnic disparities in access to health care among U.S. children between 1996 and 2000. METHODS Data are from the Household Component of the 1996 and 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Bivariate associations of combinations of race/ethnicity and poverty status groups were examined with four measures of access to hea...