Minority Health and Health Equity Archive

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/21769

Welcome to the Minority Health and Health Equity Archive (MHHEA), an electronic archive for digital resource materials in the fields of minority health and health disparities research and policy. It is offered as a no-charge resource to the public, academic scholars and health science researchers interested in the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities.

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Subject: search.filters.subject.disparities in health

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 12
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    Emerging Issues in Hispanic Health: Summary of a Workshop
    (National Academies Press, 2002) Iannotta, Joah G.
    According to data from the 2000 census, Hispanics—to the extent that they can be considered a discrete and identifiable segment of American society—are now the largest minority in the United States, composing 12.5 percent of the population (Bureau of the Census, 2000). By 2050, Hispanics are expected to constitute 25 percent of the U.S. population (Day, 1996). Hispanic communities are no longer found in only a limited number of cities in the West, although the largest communities—as measured by census tracts in which Hispanics represent 60 to 80 percent of the population—are in the Southwest and West. Nevertheless, small but vibrant communities can be found in almost all major U.S. cities. That Hispanics make up a significant—and growing—segment of the American population and can be found in cities across the country means that issues affecting Hispanic Americans, their families, and their communities are of local, regional, and national significance.
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    HURRICANE KATRINA: A SOCIAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH DISASTER
    (2005) Quinn, S. C.
    Hurricane Katrina made it evident that natural disasters occur in the same social, historical, and political environment in which disparities in health already exist. The hurricane was only the disaster agent; what created the magnitude of the disaster was the underlying vulnerability of the affected communities. In New Orleans, where 69% of the population is African American and 23% live below the poverty line, thousands of African Americans were stranded after the evacuation order. The risks from the heat, floodwaters, and other factors, combined with existing social disparities in health, contributed to an exacerbation of chronic health conditions, and distrust of government agencies.
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    Racial residential segregation: a fundamental cause of racial disparities in health.
    (2001) Williams, D R; Collins, C
    Racial residential segregation is a fundamental cause of racial disparities in health. The physical separation of the races by enforced residence in certain areas is an institutional mechanism of racism that was designed to protect whites from social interaction with blacks. Despite the absence of supportive legal statutes, the degree of residential segregation remains extremely high for most African Americans in the United States. The authors review evidence that suggests that segregation is a primary cause of racial differences in socioeconomic status (SES) by determining access to education and employment opportunities. SES in turn remains a fundamental cause of racial differences in health. Segregation also creates conditions inimical to health in the social and physical environment. The authors conclude that effective efforts to eliminate racial disparities in health must seriously confront segregation and its pervasive consequences.
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    Socioeconomic Disparities In Health: Pathways And Policies Inequality in education, income, and occupation exacerbates the gaps between the health “haves” and “have-nots.”
    (2002) Adler, Nancy E.; Newman, Katherine
    Socioeconomic status (SES) underlies three major determinants of health: health care, environmental exposure, and health behavior. In addition, chronic stress associated with lower SES may also increase morbidity and mortality. ReducingSES disparities in health will require policy initiatives addressingthe components of socioeconomic status (income, education, and occupation) as well as the pathways by which these affect health. Lessons for U.S. policy approaches are taken from the Acheson Commission in England, which was charged with reducing health disparities in that country.
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    Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Hypertension Control
    (2008) Satcher, David
    Anational strategy for improving the health of the American people has been defined for each decade since 1980. When Healthy People 20102 was released in 2000, there were 2 overarching goals. The first goal dealt with our need to focus more attention on improving quality of life, not just years of life lived. The second goal was the elimination of disparities in health among different racial and ethnic groups. Whereas reducing disparities in health has been part of Healthy People 2010 for some years, targeting the elimination of disparities in health brought the kind of attention and planning to disparities in health that had not been seen before.
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    Adverse Effects of US Jail and Prison Policies on the Health and Well-Being of Women of Color
    (2002) Freudenberg, Nicholas
    In the past few decades, US policies have led to an unprecedented increase in the number of people behind bars. While more men than women are incarcerated, the rate of increase for women has been higher. Evidence of the negative impact of incarceration on the health of women of color suggests strategies to reduce these adverse effects. Correctional policies contribute to disparities in health between White women and women of color, providing a public health rationale for policy change. Specific roles for health professionals include becoming involved in alliances addressing alternatives to incarceration, creating programs that address the needs of women in correctional facilities, and identifying the pathways by which correctional policies damage health.
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    Health inequalities and the welfare state: perspectives from social epidemiology
    (2007) Kaplan, George A.
    It might be assumed that welfare states that have done so much to reduce inequality of opportunity have also reduced inequality of health outcomes. While great advances have been seen in reducing the rates of many diseases in welfare states, disparities in health have not been eliminated. Is it the case that lowering risks overall will leave disparities that cannot be remediated, and that such efforts are at the point of diminishing returns? The evidence suggests that this is not true. Instead the lens of social epidemiology can be used to identify groups that are at unequal risk and to suggest strategies for reducing health inequalities through upstream, midstream, and downstream interventions. The evidence suggests that these interventions be targeted at low socioeconomic position, place-based limitations in opportunities and resources, stages of the life course and the accumulation of disadvantage across the life course, and the underlying health-related factors that are associated with the marginalization and exclusion of certain groups. In their commitment to the values of equity and social justice, welfare states have unique opportunities to demonstrate the extent to which health inequalities can be eliminated.
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    Beauty Salons: A Promising Health Promotion Setting for Reaching and Promoting Health Among African American Women
    (2007) Linnan, Laura A.; Ferguson, Yvonne Owens
    African American women suffer disproportionately from a wide range of health disparities. This article clarifies how beauty salons can be mobilized at all levels of the social-ecological framework to address disparities in health among African American women. The North Carolina BEAUTY and Health Project is a randomized, controlled intervention trial that takes into account the unique and multilevel features of the beauty salon setting with interventions that address owners, customers, stylists; interactions between customers and stylists; and the salon environment. The authors make explicit the role of the political economy of health theoretical perspective for understanding important factors (social, political, historical, and economic) that should be considered if the goal is to create successful, beauty-salon-based interventions. Despite some important challenges, the authors contend that beauty salons represent a promising setting for maximizing reach, reinforcement, and the impact of public health interventions aimed at addressing health disparities among African American women.
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    The Public Health Approach to Eliminating Disparities in Health
    (2008) Satcher, David; Higginbotham, Eve J.
    Reducing and eliminating disparities in health is a matter of life and death. Each year in the United States, thousands of individuals die unnecessarily from easily preventable diseases and conditions. It is critical that we approach this problem from a broad public health perspective, attacking all of the determinants of health: access to care, behavior, social and physical environments, and overriding policies of universal access to care, physical education in schools, and restricted exposure to toxic substances. We describe the historical background for recognizing and addressing disparities in health, various factors that contribute to disparities, how the public health approach addresses such challenges, and two successful programs that apply the public health approach to reducing disparities in health. Public health leaders must advocate for public health solutions to eliminate disparities in health.
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    Transcending the Known in Public Health Practice - The Inequality Paradox: The Population Approach and Vulnerable Populations
    (2008) Frohlich, Katherine L.; Potvin, Louise
    Using the concept of vulnerable populations, we examine how disparities in health may be exacerbated by populationapproach interventions. We show, from an etiologic perspective,howlife-course epidemiology, the concentration of risk factors, and the concept of fundamental causes of diseases may explain the differential capacity, throughout the risk-exposure distribution, to transform resources provided through population-approach interventions into health. From an intervention perspective, we argue that population-approach interventions may be compromised by inconsistencies between the social and cultural assumptions of public health practitioners and targeted groups. We propose some intervention principles to mitigate the health disparities associated with population-approach interventions.