Introduction to the Special Issue on Health Disparities and Diversity

Excerpt

While health disparities in the US have existed for more than a century (Krieger & Fee, 1996), racial and ethnic health disparity gaps have grown wider (Srinivasan & Williams, 2014). More than 30 years ago, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Task Force Report on Black and Minority Health was released, which elevated concerns about the poor health of racial and ethnic minority groups in the U.S. health policy agenda (US-DHHS, 1985; Kumanyika & Morssink, 2006). Almost 20 years ago, the then US Surgeon General, Dr. David Satcher, in Healthy People 2010, announced the audacious goal of eliminating such health disparities by the year 2010 (US-DHHS, 2000). Throughout this time, there remains the sense that the problem of health disparities is constantly being rediscovered, but that actual progress toward the elimination of gaps in health outcomes has been slow (Kumanyika & Morssink, 2006; Srinivasan & Williams, 2014). …