Population-specific differences in access to quality health care, whether caused by gender, race, geography, environment, or other factors, can affect individual and community health. RAND research aims to understand the causes of—and thereby reduce disparities in—health outcomes, access, and care at the individual, community, and international levels.
Commentary
When it comes to women's health, cancer gets a good deal of the attention; somehow, it hasn’t fully registered that so many of our mothers, sisters, friends and daughters are being affected by another, often silent killer, writes Chloe E. Bird.
Journal Article
The objective of this study was to describe our experience in reducing quality-of-care disparities among Puerto Rican children with asthma by adapting 2 existing evidence-based asthma interventions.
Journal Article
The authors examined the effects of a collaborative care intervention for anxiety disorders in primary care on lower-income participants relative to those with higher incomes.
Journal Article
Community health centers (CHCs) play a critical role in the primary care safety net.
Journal Article
The study tests whether participation in interventions offered by a subset of sites from the National Safe Start Promising Approaches for Children Exposed to Violence initiative improved outcomes for children relative to controls.
Journal Article
Men who experienced discrimination-related interpersonal trauma in their lifetime were more likely than were those who had not experienced such trauma to have engaged in unprotected anal intercourse with a male partner.
Journal Article
Disparities in prison and diversion to drug treatment among drug-involved offenders affect hundreds of thousands of citizens and might reinforce imbalances in criminal justice and health outcomes.
Journal Article
Screening for asymptomatic diseases can reduce the burden of morbidity and mortality in all population groups.
News Release
Immigrants who come to the United States from Mexico arrive with a significant amount of undiagnosed disease. About half who have diabetes are unaware they have it and about one-third of those with high blood pressure are unaware of the illness.
Journal Article
Greater hospital cultural competency may improve overall patient experiences, but may particularly benefit minorities in their interactions with nurses and hospital staff. Such effort may not only serve longstanding goals of reducing racial/ethnic disparities in inpatient experience, but may also contribute to general quality improvement.
Journal Article
Quality improvement efforts may be needed to reduce racial/ethnic disparities in beneficiary experience with PD coverage.
Blog
The burden of cancer is not experienced equally across the population: Nationwide, black Americans have higher rates of death from cancer than white Americans, and nowhere has this disparity been more apparent than in the nation's capital, writes Rebecca Anhang Price.
News Release
Across the United States in 2009, overall cancer incidence was 4 percent higher among blacks than among whites. The disparity was more striking in Washington, D.C., where the overall cancer incidence among black residents was 54 percent higher than the incidence among white residents.
Report
Across the United States in 2009, overall cancer incidence was 4 percent higher among blacks than among whites. The disparity was more striking in Washington, D.C., where the overall cancer incidence among black residents was 54 percent higher than the incidence among white residents.
Blog
Absent from the discussion about health care during the first debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney was any mention of one of the main providers of care for America's uninsured: emergency rooms. What does research tell us about the use of ERs and the relevant implications on health care access and cost?
Journal Article
From 2000 to 2010, the proportion of Americans who were severely obese—those people 100 pounds or more overweight—rose from 3.9 percent of the population to 6.6 percent—an increase of about 70 percent.
News Release
From 2000 to 2010, the proportion of Americans who were severely obese—those people 100 pounds or more overweight—rose from 3.9 percent of the population to 6.6 percent—an increase of about 70 percent.
Journal Article
By 8th grade, Hispanic and black children are 50 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white children. Obesity is equally prevalent among Hispanic and black children, but it emerges and is sustained earlier in Hispanics. This should have implications for diagnosis and prevention strategies going forward.
Commentary
As we look for ways to provide efficient, high-quality, and cost-effective health care to more Americans, we can't afford to ignore women's health issues, including reproductive health care and the cost savings that contraceptive access provides, writes Chloe Bird.
Journal Article
Cultural competency has been proposed as an organizational strategy to address racial/ethnic disparities in the health care system; disparities are a long-standing policy challenge whose relevance is only increasing with the increasing population diversity of the US and across the world.
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