The Role of Nurses in Eliminating Health Disparities and Achieving Health Equity

Nurses are the largest and most trusted health care workforce and have both professional and moral responsibility to acknowledge, lead, and act to eliminate health disparities and achieve health equity. However, similar to other health professionals, most nurses indicate that they do not have requisite preparation and, therefore, are not practice-ready to meet the need of patients from diverse backgrounds (Fleckman, Corsco, Ramirez, Begaleiva, & Johnson, 2015; Institute of Medicine, 2011). Nursing students’ preparation and nurse clinicians’ continuing education are increasingly important not only due to the disparities in health outcomes described above, but also due to the increasing diversity of the U.S. population as a whole.