New considerations of health disparities within allergy and immunology

Abstract

The pandemic, political upheavals, and social justice efforts in our society have resulted in attention to persistent health disparities and the urgent need to address them. Using a scoping review, we describe published updates to address disparities and targets for interventions to improve gaps in care within allergy and immunology. These disparities-related studies provide a broad view of our current understanding of how social determinants of health threaten patient outcomes and our ability to advance health equity efforts in our field. We outline next steps to improve access to care and advance health equity for patients with allergic/immunologic diseases through actions taken at the individual, community, and policy levels, which could be applied outside of our field. Key among these are efforts to increase the diversity among our trainees, providers, and scientific teams and enhancing efforts to participate in advocacy work and public health interventions. Addressing health disparities requires advancing our understanding of the interplay between social and structural barriers to care and enacting the needed interventions in various key areas to effect change.

Keywords: Health disparities; allergic rhinitis; allergy; asthma; food allergy; health equity; immunology; social determinants of health; structural racism.

Figure 1.

Framework for upstream and downstream effects of health disparities in allergic and immunologic diseases Upstream factors of structural inequity, barriers to research, and the built environment effects on adverse outcomes and barriers to care in allergy-immunology are shown. Proposed interventions and examples of future research needs are described. Created using Biorender.com