Health disparities and health care management practice and research.

摘要

Health disparities is not a new topic. Addressing health disparities was formalized as one of the Healthy People 2010 goals. That priority of addressing health disparities has been carried through the federal funding of research. We now have a considerable body of health services research that has expanded and deepened our understanding of the parameters of health disparities that exist in the United States and of which provider behaviors might be coiv tributing to the disparities. Knowing that individual provider behaviors and certain health care system characteristics are associated with disparities, although important, seems insufficient. Missing is an understanding of the actual organizational processes that allow, support, or ignore individual and system behaviors contributing to health disparities.