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According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), health disparities refers to a population-specific difference in the presence of disease, health outcomes, quality of health care and access to health care services—that exist across racial and ethnic groups (NCSL,2011). Health disparities remain a major concern in America and it is like a virus that is damaging the progress towards healthcare equality. Some of the major factors are unequal social class, unequal economic opportunity and poor physical and environmental conditions. Furthermore, gender, sexuality, ethnicity and geographical locations also play a role in health disparities. Many of the people impacted by health disparities are minorities who represent 34.5% of the U.S population according to the 2010 U.S Census Bureau estimate. Despite the high population of minorities, some minority groups like Blacks American, American Indians and Alaska Natives had been reported to have poor health outcomes due to the health barriers and biases (Artiga, 2016). Blacks, American Indians and Alaska Natives have a higher prevalence of asthma, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease than the general population of people with these conditions. …show more content…
In regards to the gender factor in health disparities, we see both genders being treated unfairly. Since the struggle for women rights in America, we have successfully seen a decrease in income gap between men and women. Everyone has some protected rights under the law despite their gender. However, women have not fully been granted autonomy over their body and their healthcare choices. About fifty percent of female adolescents in America do not have autonomy under the law to access reproductive healthcare services that address and prevent some of the negative consequences associated with adolescents (Gretchen,
Large disparities exist between minorities and the rest of Americans in major areas of health. Even though the overall health of the nation is improving, minorities suffer from certain diseases up to five times more than the rest of the nation. President Clinton has committed the nation to eliminating the disparities in six areas of health by the Year 2010, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be jumping in on this huge battle. The six areas are: Infant Mortality, Cancer Screening and Management, Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, HIV Infection and AIDS, and Child and Adult Immunizations.
Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority. "U.S. Census Bureau Report." 2007. OMH - Office of Minority Health. 3 December 2011 .
Williams, D. 1994. The Concept of Race and Health Status in America. Public Health Report. 109(1)
In recent discussions of health care disparities, a controversial issue has been whether racism is the cause of health care disparities or not. On one hand, some argue that racism is a serious problem in the health care system. From this perspective, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) states that there is a big gap between the health care quality received by minorities, and the quality of health care received by non-minorities, and the reason is due to racism. On the other hand, however, others argue that health care disparities are not due to racism. In the words of Sally Satel, one of this view’s main proponents, “White and black patients, on average don’t even visit the same population of physicians” (Satel 1), hence this reduces the chances of racism being the cause of health care disparities. According to this view, racism is not a serious problem in the health care system. In sum, then, the issue is whether racism is a major cause of health care disparities as the Institute of Medicine argues or racism is not really an issue in the health care system as suggested by Sally Satel.
The purpose of this essay is to discuss three patient and health-system related factors that influence health care disparities within the West Texas region and how they are inter-related.
Racial disparities in The United States health care system are widespread and well documented. Social and economic inequalities between racial minorities and their white counter parts have lead to lower life expectancy rates, higher infant mortality rates, and overall poorer health for people of color. As the nation’s population continues to become increasingly diverse, these disparities are likely to grow if left unaddressed. The Affordable Care Act includes various provisions that specifically aim to reduce inequalities for racially and ethnically marginalized groups. These include provisions in the Senate bill and House bill that aim to expand coverage, boost outreach and education programs, establish standards for culturally and linguistically appropriate practices, and diversify the health care workforce. The ACA, while not a perfect solution for eliminating health disparities, serves as an important first step and an unprecedented opportunity to improve health equity in the United States.
Williams, D. R., & Jackson, P. B. (2005). Social sources of racial disparities in health. Health Affairs, 24(2), 325-334. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.24.2.325
According to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the percentage of racial and ethnic minority groups in the state of Maryland continues to increase. To be exact, high percentages of racial and ethnic minority groups are found in several counties including Montgomery County with a 50.7%, Prince George’s County with an 85.1%, and Howard County with an estimated 40.8%. As these numbers begin to increment, the need for affordable and accessible medical services also increases. However, the reality is, minority groups don’t have adequate access to medical services, and if they do, such services are not affordable. Consequently, we witness health disparities among neighboring communities, minorities suffering from preventable chronic diseases and
Health disparities are the variances in access to healthcare. This also include variance in availability of health care services, facilities, education, and insurance. Another aspect is the variance in the type of violence, injury, and disease that exist in specific communities and ethnic groups. Health disparities leads to inequalities in healthcare access and availability. Health disparities could have negative effects on the health of groups of people, resulting from greater social and economic obstacles. These obstacles could come from discrimination/exclusion due to ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, gender, sexual orientation, and geographic location.
There are many dimensions of disparity that are known to exist in the United States. According to Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Race, Socioeconomic Status and Health contribute significantly to racial disparities. Evident has shown that when it comes to early onset of illness, severity of diseases, and poor survival rate, the minority groups appeared to be more affected than they white counterpart. This was clearly demonstrated when it came to the incident of breast cancer in some groups. Yes, it has been proven that white women have a higher overall incidence rate of breast cancer compare to blacks, but yet blacks tend to have a higher risk of early onset, and the most severe type of cancer. It is incident like these that merit
Health disparities has been a common issue amongst many health care settings/facilities. However, in order to simplify these disparities they were placed into three categories: (1) socio environmental or contextual factors, (2) individual-level factors, and (3) biophysiological or genetic factors. Furthermore encino environmental factors are external things that impact the individual health, which are things like poor quality housing, pollution, stress, etc. As for individual factor it refers to things like characteristics of a person; such as health behaviors,physiological factors and other material things owned by that person that can affect health.Last is biophysical factors which can also be referred as genetic factors.This includes biological
Despite the substantial developments in diagnostic and treatment processes, there is convincing evidence that ethnic and racial minorities normally access and receive low quality services compared to the majority communities (Lum, 2011). As such, minority groups have higher mortality and morbidity rates arising from both preventable and treatable diseases judged against the majority groups. Elimination of both racial and ethnic disparities is mainly politically sensitive, but plays an important role in the equitable access of services, including the health care ones without discrimination. In addition, accountability, accessibility, and availability of equitable health care services are crucial for the continually growing
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define health disparities as “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). These disparities affect people and communities worldwide, both positively and negatively. A web of causation is used to illustrate how these factors contribute to one another and to health disparities worldwide.
Though this research, I seek to identify forces driving health inequality. Throughout history, vulnerable members of the population have been more susceptible to both illnesses and poor health. Health condition inequality and health care accessibility are not only structural injustices in society, but also a matter of life or death for lower income individuals. Especially in a country where federal funding for healthcare is constantly debated, it is essential to study if income disparities predict both health quality and healthcare inequalities. Additionally, it is essential to study if the feminization of poverty could potentially put women at risk for poor health conditions.
In the United States, about 44 million people have no health insurance, while another 38 million have an inadequate health insurance (“Healthcare Crisis”). This means that about a third of Americans wake up every day knowing that if they fall sick, they would not be able to procure the medical attention they need at an affordable cost. In wake of such statistics, many people argue that the US is lacking in providing these people with free or affordable healthcare that they need, as the UN and WHO recognize healthcare as a human right (Sherrow 31). On the other hand, many people also think that it puts unreasonable burdens on the government, and therefore the people while paying taxes, all while robbing people of their freedom of choice as to