According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, young people from racial and ethnic minority groups in the United States suffer disproportionately from a number of preventable diseases and health problems. These disparities begin early and often continue throughout one’s life, and can result directly from poverty, unequal access to health care due to a lack of insurance, poor environmental conditions, educational inequalities and individual behaviors. FOCIS discourse on health disparities will consider these issues in addition to cost-effective health care and successful policies for providing health care to socially and economically disadvantaged populations as defined by race or ethnicity, socio-economic status, geography, gender, age and other factors.