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Challenges and Successes in Reducing Health Disparities. Workshop Summary

Released:
June 17, 2008
Type:
Workshop Summary
Topic:
Select Populations and Health Disparities
Activity:
Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities
Board:
Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice

Note: Workshop Summaries contain the opinion of the presenters, but do NOT reflect the conclusions of the IOM. Learn more about the differences between Workshop Summaries and Consensus Reports.

In early 2007, the Institute of Medicine convened the Roundtable on Health Disparities to increase the visibility of racial and ethnic health disparities as a national problem, to further the development of programs and strategies to reduce disparities, to foster the emergence of leadership on this issue, and to track promising activities and developments in health care that could lead to dramatically reducing or eliminating disparities. The Roundtable's first workshop, Challenges and Successes in Reducing Health Disparities, was held in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 31, 2007, and examined the importance of differences in life expectancy within the United States, the reasons for those differences, and the implications of this information for programs and policy makers.

Other Reports by this Activity

  • Focusing on Children’s Health: Community Approaches to Addressing Health Disparities. Workshop Summary Socioeconomic conditions are known to have profound and long-term effects on health at all stages of life, from pregnancy through childhood and adulthood. Sensitive and critical periods of development, such as the prenatal period and early childhood, present significant opportunities to influence lifelong health. Yet simply intervening in the health care system is insufficient to influence health outcomes early in life. On January 24, 2008, the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on Health Disparities and Board on Children, Youth, and Families cohosted a public workshop to discuss the important foundations of adult health that are laid prenatally and in early childhood.
    Released: September 2, 2009
  • Toward Health Equity and Patient-Centeredness: Integrating Health Literacy, Disparities Reduction, and Quality Improvement. Workshop Summary During a time of economic uncertainty, the national discussion of health reform understandably focuses on insurance coverage and cost. To receive the greatest value for health care, it is important to focus on issues of quality and disparity, and the ability of individuals to make appropriate decisions based on basic health knowledge and services, or health literacy. Three IOM bodies (the Forum on the Science of Health Care Quality Improvement and Implementation, the Roundtable on Health Disparities, and the Roundtable on Health Literacy) jointly convened a workshop to discuss these concerns.
    Released: February 23, 2009

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