Although some attention is paid to the reduction of health disparities at the national level, information about successful efforts at the state and local levels is seldom heard. What are the policy levers that have led to suc- cessful state or local initiatives? To make progress at the national level, it is important to understand what has worked at other levels of government. Similarly, succes…
When researchers and policy makers discuss the differential health outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities, what language is appropriate to describe these differences? Are they “disparities”? “Inequalities”? “Inequi- ties”? The definition used depends on how the differences are framed. How people talk about these issues has everything to do with public interest in the topic, what …
In early 2007, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Acad- emies convened the Roundtable on Health Disparities to increase the visibility of racial and ethnic health disparities as a national problem, further the development of programs and strategies to reduce disparities, and track promising activities and developments in health care that could lead to dramatically reducing or elimi…