Health Disparities: Overall

Health disparities are differences in health outcomes among various population groups. When a disease occurs more frequently or more people die from a disease in one population as compared to another population, these differences are considered health disparities. Health communication researchers study health disparities because improving the quality of health messages (both mass mediated and interpersonal) in an environment can be one important strategy for helping reduce differences in health outcomes. There are six key aspects of health disparities that are essential to understanding the overall topic. These include differences in how health disparities are defined, the meaning of the term health inequities, the influence of health policies for creating and eliminating health inequities, ethical justifications for eliminating health inequities, human rights justifications for eliminating ...