Will the Field of Prevention Science Meaningfully Embrace Health Equity to Prevent Its Own Obsolescence?

Health equity is emerging as one of the most important issues of our time. It is on the minds of those who work in academia, government, advocacy organizations, philanthropy, health care, and policy institutes. While we have as a field made gains that improve the prospects of many people for their physical and mental health, we still see tremendous disparities gravely impacting our most vulnerable populations. The way forward must include attention to these disparities, which largely operate not at the programmatic level but at the systems level. Have we effectively prepared prevention scientists to consider the social determinants of health in the development of strategies to prevent or reduce substance abuse, violence, and HIV/AIDS? Do we need to re-conceptualize our approach to prevention to focus on the systems and institutions that perpetuate inequities if we are ever to achieve population-level health that accounts for the most marginalized within the population? How must our data collection and analysis change? How must our understanding of success change? How must the field itself become more diverse and inclusive? Will prevention science become obsolete if it cannot fundamentally contribute to reductions in disparities and inequities? In a lively conversation, these questions will be considered in this roundtable with notable thought leaders, researchers, practitioners and students, some of whom were contributors to the paper Promoting Health and Behavioral Health Equity in California, which was published in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice., Issue: Volume 22 Supplement 1, Health Equity, January/February 2016, p S100-S106.