Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health and Hypertension Control

Abstract

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.