Zero Disparities Committee

The Zero Disparities Committee is a working group of Cambridge Health Alliance’s Public Health Council. The Committee works towards reducing disparities in service utilization and health outcomes among the populations we serve.

The Zero Disparities Committee is currently working on an initiative to improve the quality of the race, ethnicity, and language data collected by the Alliance. Accurate, patient-identified data will help us to be able to better serve our patients and reduce and address disparities within our system.

According to the Institute of Medicine report "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care 2003", minorities receive lower quality of care even when insurance status, income, age, and severity are comparable with non-minorities. Racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare occur in the broader context of historic and contemporary socioeconomic and racial inequality and discrimination that still exists in today’s society. These disparities occur across different illnesses including cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, kidney transplants, depression, and end stage renal disease.