Health Equity: Close the Health Gap in the United States

The nation suffers gross disparity between the standard of health attainable and the poor health and early death that increases as one descends the social class gradient.  At every social level, suffering and loss is greater for racial/ethnic minorities.  The inequity is the result of complex processes involving the political and social realities into which people are born, live, work, play, and age. Meeting the grand challenge of health equity requires expanded attention to social and cultural determinants of health: across generations, over the life span and through the levels of community surrounding the individual. Social work has a strong legacy of incorporating social context into clinical and community-based intervention and is well poised to accelerate transdisciplinary research that advances health equity. The session will outline the current federal approach to disparities and discuss how social factors are getting short shrift and social work is positioned to create change using both big and small data. Collaboration among practitioners and community members most affected by health disparities holds the potential to expand science-grounded community and clinical innovation as a distinctive contribution to closing the health gap. Practice Based Research Networks are among the promising methods.