Ethnic Disparities in Health: The Public’s Role in Working for Equality

The overarching goals should be to increase the quality of life and years of healthy life for all Americans and to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities. This has been an ambitious undertaking, but there has been considerable progress. . African Americans and other racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected. The signifi cant gender and racial gaps for African American men are likely to persist. [PLoS Medicine special collection on Social Medicine. Essay]