Abstract
Racial and ethnic disparities are prevalent in healthcare. Despite decades of public health initiatives to reduce and eliminate disparities, striking disparities persist. Addressing disparities has been a focus of the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People Initiative for decades; working toward health equity in the United States is one of the goals in the Healthy People 2020 program. In 2020, a Call to Action by the US Surgeon General focused on improving maternal health and reducing disparities. Anesthesia and obstetric providers have embraced achieving health equity as a goal. In this chapter, the definitions of disparities are reviewed. The underlying contributors to racial and ethnic disparities and approaches to improvement in healthcare disparities are explored.