Public health workers are on the frontlines of a long struggle to help all individuals have access to high quality health promotion and health care services. According to the 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR)*, “disparities related to race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status still pervade the American health care system.” Disparities are seen in almost all aspects of health care, including health care quality (effectiveness, patient safety, timeliness, and patient centeredness), access to care (facilitators and barriers to care, health care utilization), levels/types of care (preventive care, treatment of acute conditions, and management of chronic disease), clinical conditions (cancer, diabetes, end stage renal disease, heart disease, HIV disease, mental health and substance abuse, and respiratory diseases), care settings (primary care, dental care, home health care, emergency departments, hospitals, and nursing homes), and within subpopulations (women, children, elderly, residents of rural areas, and individuals with disabilities and other special health care needs).

Information is power and there are a number of excellent online resources on health disparities and minority health available on the Internet, a few of which are listed below.

• National Healthcare Disparities Report 2005 (Department of Health and Human Services)*
  The 2005 National Healthcare Disparities Report (NHDR) tracks disparities in both quality of and access to health care in the United States for both the general population and for congressionally designated priority populations.
  
  
• Health Disparities Collaboratives
  The Health Disparities Collaborative website is home for a community of learners who are committed to improving health care. The site provides a centralized portal for communication as well as a forum for sharing the challenges, successes, tools of the trade and lessons learned.
  
  
• Kaiser Family Foundation: Minority Health
  The Kaiser Family Foundation seeks to improve knowledge and understanding of the relationship between race/ethnicity and health care, through policy research and analysis, and media and public education activities… The fact sheets, chart packs, reports, surveys and web casts gathered here can help to inform efforts to reduce disparities in health care access and quality.
  
  
• US Census Bureau Minority Links
  Quick and easy links to the latest data on racial and ethnic populations in the United States.