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The CDC defines health disparities as “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations.” These populations include those who have faced systemic discrimination based on their race or ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, age, sexual orientation or gender identity, mental health, education, or disability (Healthy People 2020).
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and wider forces that impact health outcomes. According to WHO, these forces include economic policies/systems, development agendas, social norms, social policies, and political systems. The SDOH have a strong influence on health disparities by creating serious obstacles to resources and opportunities that would help maintain, protect, and/or improve health and wellbeing (CDC).
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Health equity, according to the CDC, is “when every person has the opportunity to ‘attain his or her full health potential' and no one is ‘disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other socially determined circumstances.’” The achievement of health equity comes with the elimination of health disparities.