Skip to Main Content

Searching Health Disparities Literature: Researching Health Disparities

How do you define Health Disparities?

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, health disparities are "differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities" related to proper healthcare of individuals. Understanding how to research health disparities is vital to developing proper knowledge when it comes to the care of individuals who face health disparities and vulnerability.

Searching for Social Determinants of Health and Health Disparities can prove difficult for a searcher of any level. The videos below outline strategies for searching the literature, and below the videos are some recommended terms that can be used to kickstart your literature review. This is by no means comprehensive and should not be used to conduct a systematic or scoping review! In each box are terms that can be used in an "OR" string in PubMed. All terms can be adapted to other databases as well.

How to Search for Social Determinants of Health & Health Disparities

Terms for Searching Social Determinants of Health & Health Disparities

  • "Social Determinants of Health"[Mesh]
  • "social determinant*"[tiab]
  • "health determinant*"[tiab]
  • "health structural determinant*"[tiab]
  • "structural determinant*"[tiab]
  • "Socioeconomic Factors"[Mesh:NoExp]
  • socioeconomic*[tiab]
  • "Economic Stability"[Mesh]
  • "Economic Status"[Mesh]
  • Poverty*[tiab]
  • ((financial*[tiab] OR economic*[tiab] OR income*[tiab]) AND (instabilit*[tiab] OR stabilit*[tiab] OR security[tiab] OR management*[tiab] OR stress*[tiab] OR pressure*[tiab] OR toxic*[tiab] OR challenge*[tiab] OR burden*[tiab] OR hardship*[tiab] OR strain*[tiab] OR inequal*[tiab] OR equal*[tiab]))
  • "Educational Status"[Mesh:NoExp]
  • "educational status*"[tiab]
  • Education[Mesh:NoExp]
  • "Education access*"[tiab]
  • Literacy[Mesh]
  • literac*[tiab]
  • "Health Services Accessibility"[Mesh:NoExp]
  • "health access*"[tiab]
  • "access to care"[tiab]
  • "Healthcare Disparities"[Mesh]
  • "health disparit*"[tiab]
  • "health care disparit*"[tiab]
  • "Built Environment"[Mesh]
  • "built environment*"[tiab]
  • "Housing Quality"[Mesh]
  • "Housing quality"[tiab]
  • "Neighborhood Characteristics"[Mesh]
  • "Neighborhood Characteristic*"[tiab]
  • "Social Class"[Mesh]
  • "Social Mobility"[Mesh]
  • "Social Conditions"[Mesh:NoExp]
  • "Social Change"[Mesh:NoExp]
  • Discrimination[tiab]
  • Prejudice*[tiab]
  • ((racial*[tiab] OR gender*[tiab]) AND (inequit*[tiab] OR inequit*[tiab] OR inequalit*[tiab] OR equalit*[tiab]))

Highlighted E-Books

Health Care off the Books

To Make the Wounded Whole

My Quest for Health Equity

Sickening