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Understanding Disparities in Healthcare: Implications for Health Systems and AI Applications

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Healthcare Information Management Systems

Part of the book series: Health Informatics ((HI))

Abstract

This goal of this chapter is to describe the origins and impact of health disparities, with particular emphasis on how societal and structural inequities affect both access to care and quality of care. We will begin with definitions, followed by a discussion of contributing factors, including both structural factors and social determinants of health (SDoH). In our discussion of societal inequities on access, use and quality of health care, we will examine the impact of racial injustice, discrimination in research, bias and lack of diversity, as well as organizational and systemic factors, including policy and financing. We will also describe some of the ways the different factors interact to form a web of disparities, using recent experiences with COVID-19 to illustrate how individual factors combine in ways that compound their impact. We will also briefly introduce the ways in which underlying disparities affect healthcare data that are used to develop AI algorithms intended to advance research and improve health care systems and decision-making.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA

    Eileen Koski & Morgan A. Foreman

  2. IBM Watson Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Elisabeth Lee Scheufele

  3. IBM Watson Health, Chicago, IL, USA

    Hema Karunakaram

  4. Merative (formerly IBM Watson Health), Bethesda, MD, USA

    Winnie Felix & Irene Dankwa-Mullan

Authors
  1. Eileen Koski
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  2. Elisabeth Lee Scheufele
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  3. Hema Karunakaram
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  4. Morgan A. Foreman
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  5. Winnie Felix
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  6. Irene Dankwa-Mullan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Eileen Koski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Joan M. Kiel

  2. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    George R. Kim

  3. The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA

    Marion J. Ball

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Koski, E., Scheufele, E.L., Karunakaram, H., Foreman, M.A., Felix, W., Dankwa-Mullan, I. (2022). Understanding Disparities in Healthcare: Implications for Health Systems and AI Applications. In: Kiel, J.M., Kim, G.R., Ball, M.J. (eds) Healthcare Information Management Systems. Health Informatics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07912-2_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07912-2_25

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-07911-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-07912-2

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

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