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Health Disparities and Their Impact on Community Health

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Sustainable Community Health

Chapter Overview and Statement of Chapter Objectives

Health disparities are differences in frequency of and impact of health conditions between specific population groups. These groups may be defined in many ways such as gender, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, or geographical location. Often, these disparities are the result of social, economic, educational, and occupational disadvantages suffered by one group in comparison to others. Moreover, these disadvantages vary greatly by ethnicity. Currently, there is a growing body of research explaining how these disadvantages impact the health of individuals and communities. Health disparities require complex solutions that are beyond the capacity of just the health care industry to those for community wellness. Therefore, a multidisciplinary approach is required, and stakeholders must form novel community partnerships between disparate industries to achieve health equity. In this chapter, we discuss the concepts of health disparities and health equity, and their role in community health. We discuss the major factors that contribute to health disparities to be addressed for sustainable community health. Lastly, we review approaches to research and address health disparities with a particular focus on community-engaged scholarship for health systems sustainability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Alabama College of Medicine, Mobile, AL, USA

    Errol D. Crook & Martha I. Arrieta

  2. Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Carrie E. Crook

  3. University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

    Roma Stovall Hanks

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  1. Errol D. Crook
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  2. Carrie E. Crook
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  4. Roma Stovall Hanks
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Correspondence to Errol D. Crook .

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  1. University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

    Elias Mpofu

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Crook, E.D., Crook, C.E., Arrieta, M.I., Hanks, R.S. (2020). Health Disparities and Their Impact on Community Health. In: Mpofu, E. (eds) Sustainable Community Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59687-3_2

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