Racism is increasingly seen as a potent cause towards the health of ethnic minorities. Increased interest in this issue has led a growing number of researchers to investigate the correlation of racism and health outcomes. Ethnicity, a socially constructed concept, sees individuals with a common background or culture belonging to a particular group. This results in individuals using ethnicity to represent themselves in relation to others, especially in the presence of other ethnic individuals. However, racism arises when external gestures are made from individuals who show superiority and preference for their own cultural background, due to biological descent. Racism is a problem faced by many ethnic minority groups, resulting in inequalities that lead towards negative health outcomes.
Previous research on the health of Aboriginal Australians and the New Zealand Maori have shown that racist discrimination and self-reports of racism are detrimental towards the health of minority individuals. Nazroo (2003) suggested that racism caused social and economic disparities among the health of ethnic people. Racism, viewed from a structuralist explanation, sees poor health situated outside individual control, placing greater stress on social and cultural factors (Julian, 2009). The Weberian and feminist perspective is a particular view that stems from this approach. It is a complex interrelationship between class and ethnicity, specifically affecting the experience of racism among minority groups (Julian, 2009). This gives reason that agency, the ability to have control over your life, is a contributing factor towards reports of racial discrimination as it is not controlled by the individual (Germov, 2009). An ethnic identity is considered...
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...e treatment strategies (Stronks et al., 2013). Therefore, improvements in the accessibility of health care services or community groups are essential in the growth of Indigenous health in many high-income countries.
In conclusion, racism is a fundamental cause towards the health of ethnic minority groups around the world. Previous studies have demonstrated that individual self-reports of racial experience is strongly linked to negative health outcomes. This gives reason for researchers to keep investigating the role of racism in health. However, it is not just the role of governments to resolve these issues as racism is deeply rooted in societal culture; individuals need to know how racism affects health. Therefore, major improvements are still needed in society to allow ethnic minorities to feel associated with the wider community without racial discrimination.
Smedley, B. D. (2012). The Lived Experience of Race and Its Health Consequences. The Science of Research on Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Health, 102(May), 933.
Health Disparities and Racism is an ongoing problem that is reflected among society. Health is when an individual is physically, mentally and social well being is complete. However health disparities seems to be a social injustice within various ethnicities. Health disparities range from age, race, income, education and many other things. Even though we realize health disparities are more noticeable depending on the region of country where they live in. Racism is one of the most popular factors, for why it’s known that people struggle with health.
In 2014 Beyond Blue released a video campaign that illustrated that ‘Discrimination stops with you’ and posted a message that ‘No one should be made to feel like crap just for being who they are’ (Beyond Blue 2014). The campaign dubbed The Invisible Discriminator showed a sequence of events where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience racism and links how these incidents that may seem insignificant to those being unconsciously racist can lead to anxiety and depression.
In Canada, access to health care is ‘universal’ to its citizens under the Canadian Health Care Act and this system is considered to the one of the best in the world (Laurel & Richard, 2002). Access to health care is assumed on the strong social value of equality and is defined as the distribution of services to all those in need and for the common good and health of all residents (Fierlbeck, 2011). Equitable access to health care does not mean that all citizens are subjected to receive the same number of services but rather that wherever the service is provided it is based on need. Therefore, not all Canadians have equal access to health services. The Aboriginal peoples in Canada in particular are a population that is overlooked and underserved
There are significant health disparities that exist between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australians. Being an Indigenous Australian means the person is and identifies as an Indigenous Australian, acknowledges their Indigenous heritage and is accepted as such in the community they live in (Daly, Speedy, & Jackson, 2010). Compared with Non-Indigenous Australians, Aboriginal people die at much younger ages, have more disability and experience a reduced quality of life because of ill health. This difference in health status is why Indigenous Australians health is often described as “Third World health in a First World nation” (Carson, Dunbar, Chenhall, & Bailie, 2007, p.xxi). Aboriginal health care in the present and future should encompass a holistic approach which includes social, emotional, spiritual and cultural wellbeing in order to be culturally suitable to improve Indigenous Health. There are three dimensions of health- physical, social and mental- that all interrelate to determine an individual’s overall health. If one of these dimensions is compromised, it affects how the other two dimensions function, and overall affects an individual’s health status. The social determinants of health are conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age which includes education, economics, social gradient, stress, early life, social inclusion, employment, transport, food, and social supports (Gruis, 2014). The social determinants that are specifically negatively impacting on Indigenous Australians health include poverty, social class, racism, education, employment, country/land and housing (Isaacs, 2014). If these social determinants inequalities are remedied, Indigenous Australians will have the same opportunities as Non-Ind...
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have some of the worst health outcomes in comparison to any other indigenous community in the world (AIHW, 2011). According to United Nations official Anand Grover, Aboriginal health conditions are even worse than some Third World countries (Arup & Sharp, 2009), which is astonishing, considering Australia is one of the worlds wealthiest countries. Thoroughly identifying the causes and analysing every aspect behind poor health of indigenous Australians, and Australian health in general, is near impossible due to the complexity and abundant layers of this issue. Even within the category of social determinants, it is hard to distinguish just one factor, due to so many which interrelate and correspond with each other. The aim of this essay is to firstly identify and analyse components of the social determinants of health that impact the wellbeing of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders, and demonstrate how they overlap with each other. By analysing the inequalities in health of Aboriginal and non-indigenous Australians, positive health interventions will then be addressed. Racism and the consequences it has on Indigenous health and wellbeing will be discussed, followed by an analysis of how and why social class and status is considered a determining factor when studying the health of the Aboriginal population. The issue relating ...
... To provide Indigenous people with adequate health care, emphasis needs to be placed on understanding indigenous beliefs and the social detriments Indigenous communities are faced with. Applying a suitable model of health to each individual situation will provide the best outcome. This was evident in the case study discussed in the essay. Rodney’s experiences within the medical world ended with a positive and desirable result, but if the appropriate transcultural care was not given, that positive result would have created a negative outcome, which could have been detrimental to Rodney’s future health.
Willie, Charles V., Bernard M. Kramer, and Bertram S. Brown, eds. Racism Racism Racism and Mental Health. N.p.: Univerity of Pittsburgurgh Press, 1973. Print. Contemporary Community Health Series.
Cunningham, J. & Paradies, Y.C. 2013, 'Patterns and correlates of self-reported racial discrimination among Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults, 2008-09: analysis of national survey data', International Journal for Equity in Health, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 47-61.
Ever since the foundations of modern Australia were laid; there has been a disparity between the health status of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and rest of the Australian community (Australian human rights commission, n.d.). This essay will discuss how this gap can be traced back to the discriminatory policies enacted by governments towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’s throughout history. Their existing impacts will be examined by considering the social determinants of health. These are the contemporary psycho-social factors which indirectly influence health (Kingsley, Aldous, Townsend, Phillips & Henderson-Wilson, 2009). It will be evaluated how the historic maltreatment of Aboriginal people leads to their existing predicament concerning health.
Racial Discrimination is a practice where one is treated less favorable due to their race or characteristics associated with he/she race. Within the United States there are many causes of were race matter within society, and unfortunately still does. Although it may not be obvious people still judge others by what they are and what they look like. Racial discrimination is a bias practice that is done everyday. Within this study it was able to point out what exactly leads to those to enable in such thoughts and practices. To be able to do this researchers look upon ones personal life aspects such as point of view, behavior, and environment, which was able to predict how likely one, is to be racial discriminative towards others. Using race a systematic way of life, it is heard for older generation to get out the mentality of looking pass skin color. Although times have change within American society issues such as race will never change.
Black youths arrested for drug possession are 48 times more likely to wind up in prison than white youths arrested for the same crime under the same circumstances. Many people are unaware how constant racism has been throughout the years. It is important to understand the problems of racism because it is relevant to society. Racism in America is very real and Americans need to know it.
Racism and prejudice has been present in almost every civilization and society throughout history. Even though the world has progressed greatly in the last couple of decades, both socially and technologically, racism, hatred and prejudice still exists today, deeply embedded in old-fashioned, narrow-minded traditions and values.
Racism is one of the world’s major issues today. Many people are not aware of how much racism still exists in our schools workforces, and anywhere else where social lives are occurring. It is obvious that racism is bad as it was many decades ago but it sure has not gone away. Racism very much exists and it is about time that people need to start thinking about the instigations and solutions to this matter. Many people believe that it depends on if a person was brought into the world as a racist or not but that is not the case at all. In fact, an individual cannot be born a racist but only learn to become one as they grow from child to adulthood. Basic causes, mainstream, institutions, government, anti racism groups, and even some hidden events in Canada’s past are a few of the possible instigations and solutions to racism.
Color-blind racial ideology is the idea that race isn’t important, therefore should not and does not matter in terms of identity. The results of the study found that students that had color-blind attitudes had less race-related stress than their peers. The researchers noted that because this was a self-reporting survey, the data is limiting because students may not be aware of the systemic and institutional forms of racism that covertly affects them. In this study, 79.4% of the participants were women, which is a common factor among articles regarding the mental health of college students. Due to some students identifying themselves as ethnicities such as Caribbean or African, the sample only used the data from the students that identified as African American because they did not want to have any differences within the participant’s identities. Sanchez ad Awad (2016) study proved that there wasn’t a significant difference between ethnic groups in relation to discrimination. Sanchez and Awad (2016) conducted a study that examined ethnic group differences in racial attitudes, perceived racial discrimination, and mental health outcomes in African American, Black Caribbean, and Latino Caribbean college students. These students share the same racial identity in the United States (Black) but ethnic backgrounds are vastly