Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists

Cross Cutting : Health Disparities

The mission of the Health Disparities Subcommittee is to address health disparities in the United States at the local, tribal, state, and territorial levels using best epidemiology practices. States are increasingly interested in monitoring trends in health disparities across health conditions and are producing reports of significant findings.

Health Disparities Subcommittee participants, with representatives from infectious disease, chronic disease, environmental health, and occupational health, are working to create a methodological approach to analyze available public health data for health disparities that can be used at the local and state levels and across disease areas. This work is accomplished via monthly conference calls, email, and in-person meetings.

2011 Health Disparity Methodology Meeting
The Health Disparities Subcommittee, in collaboration with CDC, convened an in-person meeting in May 2011 to discuss and propose an epidemiologic method that is practical and useful for local/state/tribal epidemiologists to analyze currently available public health datasets for racial/ethnic and socioeconomic health disparities. The main purpose of this meeting was to agree on methodologic guidance that will enable most local, tribal, and state health departments to geocode relevant disease data and combine them with census tract data to analyze for socioeconomic and racial/ethnic health disparities and compare across jurisdictions. More information can be found in the short and detailed meeting summaries.

Guidance for Calculating Incidence by Census Tract Poverty Level:
This practical data analysis demonstrates the fundamentals of using disease date, 2010 Census, and 2006-2010 American Community Survey (ACS) data to do a poverty analysis.

Guidance Document for Utilizing the Public Health Disparities Geocode Project Health Disparities Monitoring Methodology:
Dr. Nancy Krieger with the Harvard School of Public Health created the Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project (PHDGP) to determine what area‐based socioeconomic measure at which level of geography would be most apt for monitoring socioeconomic inequalities in health. Individual health departments have implemented this methodology over the past 10 years since the development of the methodology. In May 2011, members of the Health Disparities Subcommittee reviewed the PHDGP methodology and recommended its use by all member organizations. In conjunction with members of the PHDGP team, this consultants’ guidance document has been prepared by members of the PHDGP research team to facilitate use of the methodology by all CSTE member organizations to monitor socioeconomic disparities in health.

Activities fall primarily within the areas of surveillance and geocoding. For more information about the Disparities Subcommittee and its activities, please contact Erin Simms. Click here to view other Cross Cutting Steering Committee activities.

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