Author: Donald A. Barr
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421432587
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Challenging students to think critically about the complex web of social forces that leads to health disparities in the United States. The health care system in the United States has been called the best in the world. Yet wide disparities persist between social groups, and many Americans suffer from poorer health than people in other developed countries. In this revised edition of Health Disparities in the United States, Donald A. Barr provides extensive new data about the ways low socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity interact to create and perpetuate these health disparities. Examining the significance of this gulf for the medical community and society at large, Barr offers potential policy- and physician-based solutions for reducing health inequity in the long term. This thoroughly updated edition focuses on a new challenge the United States last experienced more than half a century ago: successive years of declining life expectancy. Barr addresses the causes of this decline, including what are commonly referred to as "deaths of despair"—from opiate overdose or suicide. Exploring the growing role geography plays in health disparities, Barr asks why people living in rural areas suffer the greatest increases in these deaths. He also analyzes recent changes under the Affordable Care Act and considers the literature on how race and ethnicity affect the way health care providers evaluate and treat patients. As both a physician and a sociologist, Barr is uniquely positioned to offer rigorous medical explanations alongside sociological analysis. An essential text for courses in public health, health policy, and sociology, this compelling book is a vital teaching tool and a comprehensive reference for social science and medical professionals.
Health Disparities in the United States
Author: Donald A. Barr
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421432587
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Challenging students to think critically about the complex web of social forces that leads to health disparities in the United States. The health care system in the United States has been called the best in the world. Yet wide disparities persist between social groups, and many Americans suffer from poorer health than people in other developed countries. In this revised edition of Health Disparities in the United States, Donald A. Barr provides extensive new data about the ways low socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity interact to create and perpetuate these health disparities. Examining the significance of this gulf for the medical community and society at large, Barr offers potential policy- and physician-based solutions for reducing health inequity in the long term. This thoroughly updated edition focuses on a new challenge the United States last experienced more than half a century ago: successive years of declining life expectancy. Barr addresses the causes of this decline, including what are commonly referred to as "deaths of despair"—from opiate overdose or suicide. Exploring the growing role geography plays in health disparities, Barr asks why people living in rural areas suffer the greatest increases in these deaths. He also analyzes recent changes under the Affordable Care Act and considers the literature on how race and ethnicity affect the way health care providers evaluate and treat patients. As both a physician and a sociologist, Barr is uniquely positioned to offer rigorous medical explanations alongside sociological analysis. An essential text for courses in public health, health policy, and sociology, this compelling book is a vital teaching tool and a comprehensive reference for social science and medical professionals.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421432587
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 377
Book Description
Challenging students to think critically about the complex web of social forces that leads to health disparities in the United States. The health care system in the United States has been called the best in the world. Yet wide disparities persist between social groups, and many Americans suffer from poorer health than people in other developed countries. In this revised edition of Health Disparities in the United States, Donald A. Barr provides extensive new data about the ways low socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity interact to create and perpetuate these health disparities. Examining the significance of this gulf for the medical community and society at large, Barr offers potential policy- and physician-based solutions for reducing health inequity in the long term. This thoroughly updated edition focuses on a new challenge the United States last experienced more than half a century ago: successive years of declining life expectancy. Barr addresses the causes of this decline, including what are commonly referred to as "deaths of despair"—from opiate overdose or suicide. Exploring the growing role geography plays in health disparities, Barr asks why people living in rural areas suffer the greatest increases in these deaths. He also analyzes recent changes under the Affordable Care Act and considers the literature on how race and ethnicity affect the way health care providers evaluate and treat patients. As both a physician and a sociologist, Barr is uniquely positioned to offer rigorous medical explanations alongside sociological analysis. An essential text for courses in public health, health policy, and sociology, this compelling book is a vital teaching tool and a comprehensive reference for social science and medical professionals.
Communities in Action
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583
Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583
Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
The Challenges of Health Disparities
Author: Darren Liu
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning
ISBN: 1284156095
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
This unique text explores health disparities in the United States and their implications from the perspective of a health care administration The book begins with a broad overview of health disparities including definitions from local, state, and federal legislation, as well as alternative definitions. The authors examine current and past frameworks of analysis regarding the causes of disparities and provide a statistical overview of death rates and their implications for health care administrators. In the final section of the book, each chapter looks at health disparities within each type of health care environment such as physician practices, hospitals, pharmaceutical products, Medicare/Medicaid, long-term care, insurance markets, and more.
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning
ISBN: 1284156095
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 364
Book Description
This unique text explores health disparities in the United States and their implications from the perspective of a health care administration The book begins with a broad overview of health disparities including definitions from local, state, and federal legislation, as well as alternative definitions. The authors examine current and past frameworks of analysis regarding the causes of disparities and provide a statistical overview of death rates and their implications for health care administrators. In the final section of the book, each chapter looks at health disparities within each type of health care environment such as physician practices, hospitals, pharmaceutical products, Medicare/Medicaid, long-term care, insurance markets, and more.
Unequal Treatment
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030908265X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 781
Book Description
Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 030908265X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 781
Book Description
Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.
Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem?
Author: Lisa Cooper
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421441160
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
How can we all work together to eliminate the avoidable injustices that plague our health care system and society? Health is determined by far more than a person's choices and behaviors. Social and political conditions, economic forces, physical environments, institutional policies, health care system features, social relationships, risk behaviors, and genetic predispositions all contribute to physical and mental well-being. In America and around the world, many of these factors are derived from a lingering history of unequal opportunities and unjust treatment for people of color and other vulnerable communities. But they aren't the only ones who suffer because of these disparities—everyone is impacted by the factors that degrade health for the least advantaged among us. In Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem? Dr. Lisa Cooper shows how we can work together to eliminate the injustices that plague our health care system and society. The book follows Cooper's journey from her childhood in Liberia, West Africa, to her thirty-year career working first as a clinician and then as a health equity researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Drawing on her experiences, it explores how differences in communication and the quality of relationships affect health outcomes. Through her work as the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, it details the actions and policies needed to reduce and eliminate the conditions that are harming us all. Cooper reveals with compelling detail how health disparities are crippling our health care system and society, driving up health care costs, leading to adverse health outcomes and ultimately an enormous burden of human suffering. Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem? demonstrates the ways in which everyone's health is interconnected, both within communities and across the globe. Cooper calls for a new kind of herd immunity, when a sufficiently high proportion of people, across race and social class, become immune to harmful social conditions through "vaccination" with solidarity among groups and opportunities created by institutional and societal practices and policies. By acknowledging and acting upon that interconnectedness, she believes everyone can help to create a healthier world. Features • Raises readers' health care inequities literacy through an approachable narrative with specific examples • Introduces the concept of "herd immunity" as it applies to building communal awareness of systemic injustices • Features sections that underscore key takeaways • Includes contributions from the world's leading minds through their research findings and quotations • Guides readers on what can be done at an individual level as a patient, public health professional, and community member • Includes inspiring stories of effective health equity studies and practices around the world, from Ghana's ADHINCRA Project addressing hypertension control to Baltimore's BRIDGE Study for depression in African Americans and the Maryland and Pennsylvania–based RICH LIFE Project for hypertension, diabetes, and other medical conditions Johns Hopkins Wavelengths In classrooms, field stations, and laboratories in Baltimore and around the world, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professors of Johns Hopkins University are opening the boundaries of our understanding of many of the world's most complex challenges. The Johns Hopkins Wavelengths book series brings readers inside their stories, illustrating how their pioneering discoveries benefit people in their neighborhoods and across the globe in artificial intelligence, cancer research, food systems' environmental impacts, health equity, science diplomacy, and other critical arenas of study. Through these compelling narratives, their insights will spark conversations from dorm rooms to dining rooms to boardrooms.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421441160
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
How can we all work together to eliminate the avoidable injustices that plague our health care system and society? Health is determined by far more than a person's choices and behaviors. Social and political conditions, economic forces, physical environments, institutional policies, health care system features, social relationships, risk behaviors, and genetic predispositions all contribute to physical and mental well-being. In America and around the world, many of these factors are derived from a lingering history of unequal opportunities and unjust treatment for people of color and other vulnerable communities. But they aren't the only ones who suffer because of these disparities—everyone is impacted by the factors that degrade health for the least advantaged among us. In Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem? Dr. Lisa Cooper shows how we can work together to eliminate the injustices that plague our health care system and society. The book follows Cooper's journey from her childhood in Liberia, West Africa, to her thirty-year career working first as a clinician and then as a health equity researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Drawing on her experiences, it explores how differences in communication and the quality of relationships affect health outcomes. Through her work as the founder and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, it details the actions and policies needed to reduce and eliminate the conditions that are harming us all. Cooper reveals with compelling detail how health disparities are crippling our health care system and society, driving up health care costs, leading to adverse health outcomes and ultimately an enormous burden of human suffering. Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem? demonstrates the ways in which everyone's health is interconnected, both within communities and across the globe. Cooper calls for a new kind of herd immunity, when a sufficiently high proportion of people, across race and social class, become immune to harmful social conditions through "vaccination" with solidarity among groups and opportunities created by institutional and societal practices and policies. By acknowledging and acting upon that interconnectedness, she believes everyone can help to create a healthier world. Features • Raises readers' health care inequities literacy through an approachable narrative with specific examples • Introduces the concept of "herd immunity" as it applies to building communal awareness of systemic injustices • Features sections that underscore key takeaways • Includes contributions from the world's leading minds through their research findings and quotations • Guides readers on what can be done at an individual level as a patient, public health professional, and community member • Includes inspiring stories of effective health equity studies and practices around the world, from Ghana's ADHINCRA Project addressing hypertension control to Baltimore's BRIDGE Study for depression in African Americans and the Maryland and Pennsylvania–based RICH LIFE Project for hypertension, diabetes, and other medical conditions Johns Hopkins Wavelengths In classrooms, field stations, and laboratories in Baltimore and around the world, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professors of Johns Hopkins University are opening the boundaries of our understanding of many of the world's most complex challenges. The Johns Hopkins Wavelengths book series brings readers inside their stories, illustrating how their pioneering discoveries benefit people in their neighborhoods and across the globe in artificial intelligence, cancer research, food systems' environmental impacts, health equity, science diplomacy, and other critical arenas of study. Through these compelling narratives, their insights will spark conversations from dorm rooms to dining rooms to boardrooms.
A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309212197
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Chronic diseases are common and costly, yet they are also among the most preventable health problems. Comprehensive and accurate disease surveillance systems are needed to implement successful efforts which will reduce the burden of chronic diseases on the U.S. population. A number of sources of surveillance data-including population surveys, cohort studies, disease registries, administrative health data, and vital statistics-contribute critical information about chronic disease. But no central surveillance system provides the information needed to analyze how chronic disease impacts the U.S. population, to identify public health priorities, or to track the progress of preventive efforts. A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases outlines a conceptual framework for building a national chronic disease surveillance system focused primarily on cardiovascular and chronic lung diseases. This system should be capable of providing data on disparities in incidence and prevalence of the diseases by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic region, along with data on disease risk factors, clinical care delivery, and functional health outcomes. This coordinated surveillance system is needed to integrate and expand existing information across the multiple levels of decision making in order to generate actionable, timely knowledge for a range of stakeholders at the local, state or regional, and national levels. The recommendations presented in A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases focus on data collection, resource allocation, monitoring activities, and implementation. The report also recommends that systems evolve along with new knowledge about emerging risk factors, advancing technologies, and new understanding of the basis for disease. This report will inform decision-making among federal health agencies, especially the Department of Health and Human Services; public health and clinical practitioners; non-governmental organizations; and policy makers, among others.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309212197
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Chronic diseases are common and costly, yet they are also among the most preventable health problems. Comprehensive and accurate disease surveillance systems are needed to implement successful efforts which will reduce the burden of chronic diseases on the U.S. population. A number of sources of surveillance data-including population surveys, cohort studies, disease registries, administrative health data, and vital statistics-contribute critical information about chronic disease. But no central surveillance system provides the information needed to analyze how chronic disease impacts the U.S. population, to identify public health priorities, or to track the progress of preventive efforts. A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases outlines a conceptual framework for building a national chronic disease surveillance system focused primarily on cardiovascular and chronic lung diseases. This system should be capable of providing data on disparities in incidence and prevalence of the diseases by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic region, along with data on disease risk factors, clinical care delivery, and functional health outcomes. This coordinated surveillance system is needed to integrate and expand existing information across the multiple levels of decision making in order to generate actionable, timely knowledge for a range of stakeholders at the local, state or regional, and national levels. The recommendations presented in A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases focus on data collection, resource allocation, monitoring activities, and implementation. The report also recommends that systems evolve along with new knowledge about emerging risk factors, advancing technologies, and new understanding of the basis for disease. This report will inform decision-making among federal health agencies, especially the Department of Health and Human Services; public health and clinical practitioners; non-governmental organizations; and policy makers, among others.
Guidance for the National Healthcare Disparities Report
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309085195
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
The Agency for Healthcare Research Quality commissioned the Institute of Medicine establish a committee to provide guidance on the National Healthcare Disparities Report is of access to health care, utilization of services, and the services received. The committee was asked to con population characteristics as race and ethnicity, society status, and geographic location. It was also asked to examine factors that included possible data sources and types of measures for the report.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309085195
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 215
Book Description
The Agency for Healthcare Research Quality commissioned the Institute of Medicine establish a committee to provide guidance on the National Healthcare Disparities Report is of access to health care, utilization of services, and the services received. The committee was asked to con population characteristics as race and ethnicity, society status, and geographic location. It was also asked to examine factors that included possible data sources and types of measures for the report.
Minority Populations and Health
Author: Thomas A. LaVeist
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118046528
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
"The text is state-of-the-art in its analysis of health disparities from both domestic and international perspectives. Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Health Disparities in the United States is a welcome addition to the field because it widens access to the complex issues underlying the health disparities problem. "-- Preventing Chronic Disease/CDC, October 2005 "This is a very comprehensive, evidence-based book dealing with the health disparities that plague the United States. This is a welcome and valuable addition to the field of health care for minority groups in the United States."-- Doody's Publishers Bulletin, August 2005 "Health isn’t color-blind. Racial minorities disproportionately suffer from some diseases, but experts say race alone doesn’t completely account for the disparities. Newsweek's Jennifer Barrett Ozols spoke with Thomas LaVeist, director of the Center for Health Disparities Solutions at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and author of the upcoming book, "Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Health Disparities in the U.S." (Jossey-Bass) about race and medicine. "-- MSNBC/Newsweek interview with author Thomas L. LaVeist, February 2005 "The book is readable and organized to be quickly read with specifics readily retrievable. It is comprehensive and visual."-- Journal of the American Medical Association, September 2005 Minority Populations and Health is a textbook that offers a complete foundation in the core issues and theoretical frameworks for the development of policy and interventions to address race disparities in health-related outcomes. This book covers U.S. health and social policy, the role of race and ethnicity in health research, social factors contributing to mortality, longevity and life expectancy, quantitative and demographic analysis and access, and utilization of health services. Instructors material available at http://www.minorityhealth.com
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118046528
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
"The text is state-of-the-art in its analysis of health disparities from both domestic and international perspectives. Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Health Disparities in the United States is a welcome addition to the field because it widens access to the complex issues underlying the health disparities problem. "-- Preventing Chronic Disease/CDC, October 2005 "This is a very comprehensive, evidence-based book dealing with the health disparities that plague the United States. This is a welcome and valuable addition to the field of health care for minority groups in the United States."-- Doody's Publishers Bulletin, August 2005 "Health isn’t color-blind. Racial minorities disproportionately suffer from some diseases, but experts say race alone doesn’t completely account for the disparities. Newsweek's Jennifer Barrett Ozols spoke with Thomas LaVeist, director of the Center for Health Disparities Solutions at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and author of the upcoming book, "Minority Populations and Health: An Introduction to Health Disparities in the U.S." (Jossey-Bass) about race and medicine. "-- MSNBC/Newsweek interview with author Thomas L. LaVeist, February 2005 "The book is readable and organized to be quickly read with specifics readily retrievable. It is comprehensive and visual."-- Journal of the American Medical Association, September 2005 Minority Populations and Health is a textbook that offers a complete foundation in the core issues and theoretical frameworks for the development of policy and interventions to address race disparities in health-related outcomes. This book covers U.S. health and social policy, the role of race and ethnicity in health research, social factors contributing to mortality, longevity and life expectancy, quantitative and demographic analysis and access, and utilization of health services. Instructors material available at http://www.minorityhealth.com
Eliminating Health Disparities
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309166136
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Disparities in health and health care across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States are well documented. The reasons for these disparities are, however, not well understood. Current data available on race, ethnicity, SEP, and accumulation and language use are severely limited. The report examines data collection and reporting systems relating to the collection of data on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic position and offers recommendations.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309166136
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 310
Book Description
Disparities in health and health care across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds in the United States are well documented. The reasons for these disparities are, however, not well understood. Current data available on race, ethnicity, SEP, and accumulation and language use are severely limited. The report examines data collection and reporting systems relating to the collection of data on race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic position and offers recommendations.
How Far Have We Come in Reducing Health Disparities?
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309255309
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 118
Book Description
At the turn of the 21st century, several important reports and events designed to raise awareness of health disparities and to describe initial efforts to reduce health disparities took place. The Surgeon General's office released several reports that showed dramatic disparities in tobacco use and access to mental health services by race and ethnicity. The first real legislation focused on reducing health disparities was signed into law, creating the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities within the NIH. In 2001, the IOM released its landmark report, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, highlighting the importance of a focus on health care quality rather than a focus on only access and cost issues. Building upon these reports and events, the IOM held a workshop on April 8, 2010, that discussed progress to address health disparities and focused on the success of various federal initiatives to reduce health disparities. How Far Have We Come in Reducing Health Disparities? summarizes the workshop and explains the progress in the field since 2000.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309255309
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 118
Book Description
At the turn of the 21st century, several important reports and events designed to raise awareness of health disparities and to describe initial efforts to reduce health disparities took place. The Surgeon General's office released several reports that showed dramatic disparities in tobacco use and access to mental health services by race and ethnicity. The first real legislation focused on reducing health disparities was signed into law, creating the National Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities within the NIH. In 2001, the IOM released its landmark report, Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, highlighting the importance of a focus on health care quality rather than a focus on only access and cost issues. Building upon these reports and events, the IOM held a workshop on April 8, 2010, that discussed progress to address health disparities and focused on the success of various federal initiatives to reduce health disparities. How Far Have We Come in Reducing Health Disparities? summarizes the workshop and explains the progress in the field since 2000.