Inequity in cancer care: explanations and solutions for disparity

The inequitable delivery of health care leads to differences in health outcomes for certain groups, particularly minorities and the poor that are described by the public health policy term disparity. Initially understood in racial/ethnic terms, disparity is now known as having its roots in poverty and the lack of social and medical infrastructure to equitably address the needs of affected patient groups. Powerful tools of health services research and the quality discipline have accurately described, and to a great extent explained, the disparity problem. Quality of care and disparity are integrally related concepts that benefit from the coordination of interventions to address the structural and process-based deficits in the health care delivery system that are the root cause of disparity.