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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Jeffrey N. Pearcy, MS, Division of Health Promotion Statisics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6525 Belcrest Rd., Rm 770, Hyattsville, MD 20782, 301 458-4425, jvp0@cdc.gov and Kenneth G. Keppel, PhD, NCHS/Division of Health Promotion Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6525 Belcrest Road, Rm 770, Hyattsville, MD 20782.
Considerable discussion of health disparity has occurred over the past few years. What may not be clear to all is what is meant by disparity. Efforts to assess and mitigate disparity may be based on a philosophy of equity or equality. Disparity in death rates in terms of equity implies that there is some group or target rate that all other groups should attain. In contrast, disparity in terms of equality describes how different two or more groups are. If equity is the focus of concern then a group is compared to some desired rate (a target), or to the group with the best rate. If how different two or more groups are is the question to be answered, then an average of group rates or the overall population rate may be used. The practical result of this distinction is that an equity-based approach to measuring disparity gives larger estimates of disparity than does and equality-based approach. Another issue affecting how disparity is measured and tracked is whether differences between groups, or groups and some target are made on an absolute or relative basis; or whether or not those differences are relativized to some standard. Relativized differences or statistics can be compared across health indicators of differing magnitude whereas absolute differences in general cannot. Other issues including squaring of differences and positive versus negative outcomes will be discussed.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Minority Health, Healthy People 2000/2010
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.