HEALTH EQUITY &

HEALTH DISPARITIES
Betsy Lopez
PHSC389
 A breakdown of definitions to remember

Inequalit
Equality Equity Inequity
y
Unfairnes
Samenes
Unequal Fairness s or
s
unjust

https://www.healthknowledge.org.uk/public-health-textbook/research-methods/1c-health-care-evaluation-health-care-assessment/equity-health-care
Statistics

Mental Health
Among racial and ethnic groups, the non-Hispanic black population had the lowest suicide
rate.
Persons living in metropolitan areas had a lower suicide rate than persons living in non-
metropolitan areas. The suicide rate for persons living in non-metropolitan areas was
40.9% higher than that for persons living in metropolitan areas

Nutrition, physical activity and obesity

Among education groups for adults aged 25 years and over, college graduates or above
had the highest mean daily vegetable intake. The intake for college graduates was 18.0
25.6% higher than that for other education groups

Social determinants
On time graduation rate in public schools increased 4%, from 79% for school-year 2010
11 to 82% for 201314, moving toward the HP2020 target of 87%

https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/leading-health-indicators/2020-LHI-Topics
New Measures - Racial Segregation Statistics

According to County Health Rankings, new measures have been included in

the 2016 Key Findings report:
Residential Segregation - is the index of dissimilarity where higher values indicate greater
residential segregation between black and white county residents.
The best performing
counties have black/white
residential segregation
index values of less than
23.
The worst performing
counties have black/white
residential segregation
values of at least 67 or
higher, meaning that at
least 67 percent of either
blacks or whites would have
to move into other census
tracts to create an evenly
distributed residential
http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/reports/key-findings-2016
population.
 Public Health definitions
Health Equity
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), equity is
the absence of avoidable or remediable differences among
groups of people, whether those groups are defined socially,
economically, demographically, or geographically.
Health Disparities
Definition varies by certain health researchers
According to Health People 2020, disparities is a particular
type of health difference that is closely linked with social,
economic, and/or environmental disadvantage.

http://www.who.int/healthsystems/topics/equity/en/
https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/Disparities
What is health equity?

https://youtu.be/ZPVwgnp3dAc
But how do we achieve health equity?
We need to address the health disparities factors that
impedes health equity:
Poverty, environmental threats, inadequate access to health care
Educational inequalities, individual and behavioral factors
What is health disparities?

https://youtu.be/roAQHn5rEoQ
What is the differences between the two?

Health equity Health disparities

Make sure all people have equal access and opportunities in

quality of care for a healthy life Differences in health outcomes among groups of people i.e
SES, race and ethnicity, and gender
Bridging silos, building one community

http://www.healthequityinitiative.org/hei/