The excellent article by Penman-Aguilar and colleagues on the measurement of disparities was an important contribution to our January-February 2016 supplement on Health Equity sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In our April-May issue, we published a commentary by Scanlan noting that disparities are affected by prevalence of the outcome when measured on the relative scale. The Journal of Public Health Management & Practice has followed this measurement issue beginning in 2005. As the current letter points out, Penman-Aguilar and colleagues agree that prevalence is important in interpreting trends in disparities but that the solutions proposed by Scanlan do not resolve the measurement questions he has raised.

-Lloyd F. Novick, MD, MPH

Editor-in-Chief