Understanding, unpacking, and eliminating health disparities: A prescription for health equity promotion through behavioral and psychological research-An introduction.

Research on health disparities emerged in the 1990s and has rapidly grown in scope and content. This introduction provides an overall frame for the articles presented in this special issue. The frame includes an overview of how health disparities and health equities have been defined and examined in previous research, challenges in conducting health disparities research, and the progress that has been made. The articles in this special issue address the challenges of health disparity research through new conceptual models, the expansion of diseases and health behaviors wherein disparities occur, intersectionality theory, innovative research designs, and workforce training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).