Specifically, we highlight the work of the National Advisory Council on Aging (NACA) and its Task Force on Minority Aging Research to review the NIA’s health disparities research portfolio. The first section describes the NIA’s impetus for developing priorities in health disparities research. This article describes a new framework that the National Institute on Aging (NIA) will use to assess progress in health disparities research. Thus, one fundamental issue for these institutions is the development of approaches for the analysis and evaluation of health disparities research activities. Institutions that protect public health by supporting biomedical research should support such research and assess progress toward achieving health equity by reducing and ultimately eliminating health disparities. 5 Thus, research designed to understand, prevent, and ameliorate health disparities should be a public health research priority.
Better understanding of these population differences can lead to developing interventions, critical insights for new therapeutics and public health recommendations that may improve the lives of all elderly populations. 4 Older US racial and ethnic minority populations suffer premature morbidity over the life course, pointing to biological-environmental interactions that hold important implications for understanding mechanisms to explain health disparities. 8 Other factors, such as socioeconomic status (SES), access to quality health care, and health behaviors have been shown to influence health disparities for American populations, although racial and ethnic disparities in health have not been fully explained. For example, differential exposure to stress has been identified. This research has used a number of approaches to ascertain the underlying determinants of population differences. Health disparities research related to aging is the study of biological, behavioral, sociocultural and environmental factors that influence population-level health differences.
AAM, Age-adjusted mortality, per 100,000 population. 6 Another example is lung cancer that disproportionately affects African Americans and Native Hawaiians, even after adjusting for cigarette smoking intensity. 2, 5 Chronic kidney disease is one example of a condition that disproportionately affects all minority men compared with White men yet, the two main risk factors of hypertension and diabetes can be controlled. 4 Moreover, Table 1 shows differences in specific causes of mortality among racial and ethnic groups of men that may result from both behavioral and biological processes and variations in exposure to social and environmental factors. 4 For example, mortality rates have decreased for all men in the United States, yet there are differences in this decline among racial and ethnic groups. 3 Mortality rates and causes also vary substantially by racial and ethnic classifications among men. Based on National Vital Statistics for 2013, men have higher age-adjusted mortality than women for heart disease (10%), cancer (20%), unintentional injuries (40%), suicide, and chronic liver disease and lower for stroke (20%) and Alzheimer’s Disease. 2 Adolescents and young adults are more likely to die from unintentional injury than middle-aged adults, and older adults are more likely to die from heart disease than adolescents and middle-aged adults. 1 While most Americans die from heart disease, various cancers, respiratory disease, stroke and unintentional injuries, there are differences among population-level groups.
Population-level differences in health status and life expectancy are well-documented.
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