In a new study published in Population Research and Policy Review, former Bell fellow Hiram Beltran-Sanchez and colleagues use the concept of avoidable/amenable mortality to estimate cause-of-death contributions to the difference in life expectancy between whites and blacks by gender in the United States between 1980 and 2007. Their findings show that a substantial portion of black-white disparities in mortality could be reduced given more equitable access to medical care and health interventions.