Information Review: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health

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In January 2000 US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala and Surgeon General David Satcher released Healthy People 2010, our nation's health goals for this decade. The document is available at http://www.health.gov/healthypeople. One of Healthy People 2010’s major themes is the elimination of racial and ethnic disparities in health status. Such disparities have been documented repeatedly despite improvements in health for the nation as a whole. In response, government agencies and organizations are sponsoring research, collecting data, and developing resources in an effort to close this gap.

To increase knowledge about racial and ethnic disparities in health, the National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health has produced a knowledge path on the topic. The knowledge path contains electronic and print resources geared toward the public health community. It can be found at http://www.ncemch.org/RefDes/kprace.html. Several additional resources on the topic are listed below.

The Initiative to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health (available at http://www.raceandhealth.hhs.gov/) describes the efforts of the HHS to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities by 2010 in six areas: infant mortality, cancer screening and management, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and immunizations. The Web site contains lists of online resources and information about meetings, grants, and HHS-related activities.

The March 24, 2000, CDC Surveillance Summaries offers a state-by-state report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) entitled State-Specific Prevalence of Selected Health Behaviors, By Race and Ethnicity--Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, 1997. The report is available at http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss4902a1.htm. It summarizes findings on the distribution of access to health care, health-status indicators, health-risk behaviors, and use of clinical preventive services across five racial and ethnic groups, and by state.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) published a fact sheet, Addressing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care (February 2000). The fact sheet, which is available at http://www.ahrq.gov/research/disparit.htm, examines health disparities and the reasons for them beyond issues of income and insurance. It also describes AHRQ's efforts to translate research on the topic into practice. AHRQ's program brief, Improving Health Care for Minority and Other Vulnerable Populations (February 2000), which is available at http://www.ahrq.gov/research/minorhlth.htm, summarizes AHRQ's activities to improve health and health care for minority populations.

Eliminating Health Disparities, a Webcast available at http://www.raceandhealth.hhs.gov/sidebars/sbhhs1.htm, depicts the plenary session coordinated by the Office of Minority Health as part of the Healthy People 2010 launch at the Partnerships for Health in the New Millennium conference that took place in Washington, DC, in January 2000. Panelists discussed ways to improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of effective health policies and programs that help to eliminate health disparities.

The Kaiser Family Foundation released several relevant documents at an October 1999 forum of health professionals, educators, civil rights leaders, and consumer organizers. The forum was called Race, Ethnicity and Medical Care: Improving Access in a Diverse Society. The documents are available at http://www.kff.org/content/1999/19991014a/. They include a chart book, a report, a literature review, a survey, and a press release.

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MCH Alert. 2001. Arlington, VA: National Center for Education in Maternal and Child Health. http://www.ncemch.org/alert.