Aligning Forces for Quality: a program to improve health and health care in communities across the United States.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Aligning Forces for Quality program features partnerships with leaders in targeted communities. The program is working to achieve dramatic, sustainable improvements in quality across the continuum of care by 2015. These improvements will affect patients of all races and ethnicities.

Racial/ethnic disparities and consumer activation in health.

In this paper we explore whether increasing individuals' activation (self-management) levels could hold potential for reducing racial and ethnic disparities in health. A causal model is posited that assumes that social-environmental factors influence activation levels, which in turn influence health outcomes. Relationships are examined separately for whites and African Americans, and findings are supportive of the model for both groups.