From HEN and PAHO lists
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Patterns  and Causes of Disparities in Health

DAVID  R. WILLIAMS

Policy  Challenges in Modern Health Care, 115-132, May 2005

Robert  Wood Johnson Foundation
Available  online as PDF file [20p.] at:
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/115-Part%202-Chapter%208.pdf

“……..David Williams  further develops the disparities issue as it affects
racial and ethnic groups.  He shows that such health disparities are large
and persistent. Like Link and  Phelan, he sees them as embedded in larger
influences, primarily socioeconomic  disadvantage, social isolation, and
economic marginalization. He notes the  multiple pathways through which
these larger influences affect health, such as  noxious working and living
environments, unemployment, exposure to persistent  stress, lack of
resources to cope and promote healthy living, and constrained  access to
medical care. Williams makes the essential point that analysts too  easily
combine people in racial and ethnic groups that are actually  heterogeneous
and whose members face different life and health challenges. He  argues for
data that allow us to better unpack such gross and uninformative
categories as Hispanic, black, and Asian.