The report, Setting Priorities for Health Disparities acknowledges that varying patterns of death and disease are seen in subpopulations defined by age, gender, race or ethnicity, geographic location, education or income, disability, immigration status, and sexual orientation.
Often these differences become the catalysts of demands for social change.
One reason that the U.S. experiences a higher level of health disparities than other countries is may be that the U.S. has a greater richness of population diversity than most countries.
"Disparity correlates directly with diversity and, thus, the reduction of health disparities becomes increasingly difficult when populations, such as the U.S., have a greater richness of population diversity," according to PHPAB Distinguished Fellow J. Donald Millar, M.D., DTPH.
Greater emphasis should be given to understanding why certain groups appear healthier. Ciro Sumaya, M.D., M.P.H.T.M., another PHPAB Distinguished Fellow, and Dean of the School of Rural Public Health at Texas A and M University Health Science Center, notes that "Health disparities are commonly described from the perspective of subpopulations that have greater rates of diseases rather than from the perspective of subpopulations that have resilient attributes, and therefore, lesser rates of diseases. Yet, a better understanding of these protective factors could yield information relevant to improving the health circumstances of subpopulations with disproportionately increased disease and at-risk conditions."
Given the considerable amount of effort and resources expended so far on public health, the persistence of health disparities in the U.S. would seem to be reason enough to question exactly what is really known about this phenomenon and the validity of current interventions.
