Conference: Pushing the Boundaries of Population Health Science: Social Inequalities, Biological Processes, and Policy Implications
Starting with birth and continuing throughout the life course, there continues to be disparities in key measures of population health by socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, immigrant status, gender, and sexual orientation in the US. While some of these differentials have become smaller over time, others have widened in recent decades. In some US population subgroups (e.g., white women, particularly those who are low educated), some key measures of population health are worsening in an absolute sense. Internationally, the US lags behind the majority of other wealthy countries on most indicators of population health, indicating that there is much progress to be made. In other international settings, particularly in less wealthy countries, population health measures tend to be less favorable than those in the US and much scientific work is in progress to better understand and improve the outcomes.