This chapter introduces the next section of the book which is about sustainability and finance when it comes to cross-sector collaboratives for population health improvements. It states that the focus should be on closing the gap when it comes to health disparities and a goal needs to be reducing the need for health care services. Effectively acquiring, managing, and sustaining financial investments in health is fundamental to the success of multi-sector and community-led health improvement initiatives. The chapter outlines the topics covered by the individual chapters in this section.
We have become accustomed to differentiating between the scanning microscope and the conventional transmission microscope according to the resolving power which the two instruments offer. The conventional microscope is capable of a point resolution of a few angstroms and line resolutions of periodic objects of about 1Å. On the other hand, the scanning microscope, in its normal form, is not ordinarily capable of a point resolution better than 100Å. Upon examining reasons for the 100Å limitation, it becomes clear that this is based more on tradition than reason, and in particular, it is a condition imposed upon the microscope by adherence to thermal sources of electrons.
Health disparities have once again moved to the forefront of America's consciousness with the recent significant observation of dramatically higher death rates among African Americans with COVID-19 when compared to White Americans. Health disparities have a long history in the United States, yet little consideration has been given to their impact on the clinical outcomes in the rehabilitative health professions such as speech-language pathology/audiology (SLP/A). Consequently, it is unclear how the absence of a careful examination of health disparities in fields like SLP/A impacts the clinical outcomes desired or achieved. The purpose of this tutorial is to examine the issue of health disparities in relationship to SLP/A. This tutorial includes operational definitions related to health disparities and a review of the social determinants of health that are the underlying cause of such disparities. The tutorial concludes with a discussion of potential directions for the study of health disparities in SLP/A to identify strategies to close the disparity gap in health-related outcomes that currently exists.
Closing the Gap: A National Blueprint to Improve the Health of Persons with Mental Retardation: Report of the Surgeon General's Conference on Health Disparities and Mental Retardation
