Special Populations

Many North Dakotans today are healthier and live longer than did those who lived several decades ago. Certain groups of people in North Dakota do not enjoy equal health or access to healthcare that makes good health possible. These health disparities in North Dakota are defined as inequalities in health status, utilization, or access due to structural, financial, personal, or cultural barriers. Population categories affected include, but are not limited to, those identified by age, gender, race or ethnicity, education or income, disability, geographic location, or sexual orientation. As long as there are segments of the population with poor health status, the health of our state, and our nation, as a whole will never be as good as it can be.

In North Dakota, the Healthy North Dakota Health Disparities Committee is a partnership of programs and organizations with facilities and resources to support populations experiencing disparities. Through collaboration, this group is working to document disparities and develop approaches to eliminate health disparities. Click here to view the Health Disparities Committee.

The Healthy People Initiative has been the Nation's prevention and health promotion agenda for the last two decades. One of the two overarching goals for Healthy People 2010 is to eliminate health disparities. Healthy People is firmly dedicated to the principle that — regardless of age, gender, race or ethnicity, income, education, geographic location, disability and sexual orientation — every person in every community across the nation deserves equal access to comprehensive, culturally competent, community-based health-care systems that are committed to serving the needs of the individual and promoting community health.

Healthy People recognizes that communities, states and national organizations will need to take a multidisciplinary approach to achieving health equity — an approach that involves improving health, education, housing, labor, justice, transportation, agriculture and the environment, and data collection. The greatest opportunities for reducing health disparities are in empowering individuals to make informed health-care decisions and in promoting communitywide safety, education and access to health care.

Read more about North Dakota’s Healthy People 2010 goals and progress.

More information about health disparities of minority groups may be found at the Office of Minority Health, Centers for Disease Control.