Health Disparities

Learn more about work to address health disparities on pages 16, 27, 36 and 47.

IT’S A MUST: TACKLING HEALTH DISPARITIES IN ALL WE DO.

Health disparities are literally a matter of life and death.

“This has been seen throughout the history of the U.S., from the treatment of indigenous peoples to slavery to civil rights violations to the death of Mr. Floyd in Minnesota to a variety of health conditions impacting communities of color in different and detrimental ways,” says Dean David Holtgrave. “Health disparities and social injustice are evident in the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and our School is committed to identifying and addressing these disparities and their root causes—not just for this disease, but in all areas of public health.”

It starts with research at the School, where many projects examine health disparities. Of note, the School recently launched the Center for Collaborative HIV Research in Policy and Practice, which focuses on the social determinants of health and reducing health disparities throughout all its work in HIV and related epidemics.

“Finding ways to better understand and more effectively address and eliminate health disparities in our society is at the heart of our School’s research mission,” says Benjamin Shaw, Associate Dean for Research. “Using the most state-of-the art and rigorous methods, our researchers seek to identify the key determinants of disparities in today’s most pressing health problems, and then work to develop and test innovative approaches to counteract these disparities. In this way, our research contributes significantly to growing the evidence base of interventions that can be deployed to eliminate health disparities whenever and wherever they arise.”

Research projects looking at health disparities focus on a wide range of topics, from maternal mortality to healthy aging.

“There’s a real health disparity component at play in maternal and child health. It is in this area that we see some of the most concerning health disparities. For example, Black women in New York are three to four times more likely to die from causes related to pregnancy compared to white women,” said Christine Bozlak, associate professor of Health Policy, Management and Behavior. The School’s Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Program aims to reduce health disparities not only by supporting research and public health practice in this area, but by training a diverse MCH workforce equipped to help address disparities. Study of how our physical environment impacts health disparities is also prevalent at the School. Access to healthy food can have a profound impact on diet-rated diseases. Akiko Hosler, associate professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, has studied access to supermarkets and fresh produce in the local area. Her research found that disparities in access to supermarket and food stores with desirable amounts and variety of fresh produce increased over time between minority and mixed neighborhoods.

In the classroom, students examine disparities in relation to poverty, various populations, health communication, global health and more, gaining a better understanding of how health disparities are constructed according to gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographic region, age, sexual orientation and disability.

Janine Jurkowski, Associate Dean for Public Health Practice, holds expertise in engaging low-income and other communities who experience disparities so that the perspectives of those impacted by research and public health interventions are legitimately incorporated. She emphasizes the importance of students learning specific methods to address health disparities, particularly in research.

“Research can easily be conducted in a way that re-colonizes or reinforces oppressive structures that affect communities of color,” Jurkowski explains. “Community-based participatory research, empowerment approaches and antiracist thinking are the most effective strategies for research and practice in public health. We must stop with the deficit approach and embrace the strengths and assets that are in all communities.”