Research Topic · Peer-Reviewed

Health Disparities

Health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, and access to care that systematically disadvantage particular population groups. They are distinguished from ordinary biological variation by their link to social position: disparities track with race and ethnicity, socioeconomic statu…

Curated from this journal's research 📚 12 peer-reviewed articles cited Cited 48× across the literature 🔖 ISSN 2474-7785 🗓 Reviewed July 2026

Overview

Health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, and access to care that systematically disadvantage particular population groups. They are distinguished from ordinary biological variation by their link to social position: disparities track with race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, gender and sexual identity, immigration history, and geography, and they persist across the life course. Conceptually, a disparity becomes a health inequity when the difference is unfair and rooted in avoidable structural conditions rather than individual choice. The mechanisms operate at several levels, including discrimination and chronic stress, unequal exposure to violence, differential access to screening and treatment, and the quality of available services. Research in this area examines how intersecting forms of disadvantage compound risk, as when intimate partner violence, psychosocial stress, and metabolic disease cluster within marginalized groups, or when mental health outcomes diverge among sexual-minority youth. Other lines of inquiry assess differences in chronic disease management, the effect of care-delivery models on underserved communities, and disparities in preventive uptake across settings. Measuring disparities requires careful disaggregation of outcomes by group, attention to confounding, and evaluation of interventions intended to close gaps. Reducing them depends on aligning clinical care with the social determinants that produce unequal health.

Research published in this journal

12 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.

How this research is being cited

The 12 articles above have been cited 48 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.

A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Health Disparities, linking to each citing work.

Editorial oversight

Curated from peer-reviewed research published in Aging Research And Healthcare (ISSN 2474-7785).

Journal editorial board
Anna Aiello · Italy Juan Manuel Carmona Torres · Spain IAN JAMES MARTINS · Australia

This page summarises published research for orientation; it is not medical or professional advice.