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Disparities & Policy

PROLOGUE

Disparities And Policy

This seeming disconnect between investment and achieved outcomes has reenergized the ongoing national conversation assessing the wisdom of allocating greater resources toward investment in factors outside traditional health care delivery, including socioeconomic status, education, behavior, and environment, deemed to greatly influence population health. Such discourse has spurred a growing awareness that such nonmedical issues do play a substantial role in the achievement of desirable health outcomes.

The papers that follow explore the role of public policy in leveraging the potential of nonmedical health determinants to improve the health of the population—particularly those segments consistently alienated from the health care establishment. First, J. Michael McGinnis, Pamela Williams-Russo, and James Knickman provide insight into obstacles that have heretofore thwarted the commitment of sufficient political will and resources to nonmedical determinants, while proposing policy-related strategies intended to encourage disease prevention and health promotion. Next, Nicole Lurie proposes specific steps that federal decisionmakers might take to bridge the impasse separating rhetoric from action with respect to harnessing forces outside the conventional health care arena to improve health indicators. John Lavis and Leonard Syme, Bonnie Lefkowitz, and Barbara Krimgold provide perspectives on this topic.

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