Abstract
Health Disparities, Health Equity, and Social Justice The concept of health disparities most often refers to differences in health status and quality of health care across racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic groups. By now, we know that racial and ethnic minorities in the United States, as a whole, have generally poorer health than Whites. Studies of health disparities and efforts to reduce them have traditionally focused on differences in health care access and healthrelated behavior based on race, ethnicity, and culture. For example, interventions may target individuals and groups and attempt to alter health care access and individually controlled lifestyle choices. These efforts include improving the access to and quality of health care and making sure that target populations are integrated into the health care system. Efforts could involve ensuring that the services of doctors and other health professionals are relatively affordable and making sure that health care providers and other practitioners are knowledgeable of and empathetic with cultural backgrounds of their clients and provide culturally appropriate service (e.g., language, educational materials). Thus the chief strategy to reduce health disparities is targeting individuals and groups and the health care system that treats them. In this way, health equity could be seen as the process of reaching individuals in order to reduce disparities in health.
Highlights
Persistent health disparities in disadvantaged and racial/ethnic communities have propelled additional ways to understand health disparities beyond health equity (Braunstein & LavizzoMourey, 2011). These include the concepts of social justice and health inequity
Social justice in health focuses on leveling the playing field among populations, such as changing living conditions, policies, and social arrangements that expose some groups to unhealthier environments than others, and providing the same opportunities to make health-promoting choices as those enjoyed by more advantaged groups (Freudenberg, Klitzman, & Saegert, 2009)
Social justice in health is a matter of addressing health inequity—the avoidable, unnecessary, socially produced, and unfair existence of health status difference among populations (Whitehead & Dahlgren, 2007). These perspectives take on particular significance because nearly one-fifth of all Americans live in poor neighborhoods, with ethnic minority groups disproportionately accounting for these Americans (Cubin, Pedregon, Egerter, & Braveman, 2008)
Summary
While almost 75% of Latinos are U.S citizens, the unauthorized immigrant population is vulnerable to health disparities (Motel & Patten, 2012). This special issue of the Californian Journal of Health Promotion, “Health Disparities in Latino Communities,” contributes to a growing scholarship on health disparities and vulnerable populations. A sample of manuscripts brings attention to immigration and includes populations in areas that have not traditionally been part of the health disparities literature (e.g., Latinos in the South).
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