Racism and Discrimination in Healthcare

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Recommended: Structural violence examples

Healthcare systems are microcosms of the larger society in which they exist. Where there is structural violence or cultural violence in the larger society, so will there be evidence of systematic inequities in the institutions of these societies. The healthcare system in Australia is one example—from a plethora of similarly situated healthcare systems—in which the color of a patient’s skin or the race of his parents may determine the quality of medical received. Life expectancy and infant mortality rates are vastly different for non-Aboriginal, Aboriginal, and Torres Strait Islanders residing in Australia. The life expectancy of Aboriginal men is 21 years shorter than for non-Aboriginal men in Australia. For women, the difference is 19 years. The infant mortality rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander male infants is 6.8% and the infant mortality rate for female infants is 6.7%. For non-Aboriginal infants, the infant mortality rates are 1% for male infants and 0.8% for female infants. Further, the Aboriginal population is subject to a wide-range of diseases that do not exhibit comparatively high incidence rates in non-Aboriginal Australians.

To say that racism is institutional is to refer “to the ways in which racist beliefs or values have been built into the operations of social institutions in such a way as to discriminate against, control, and oppress various minority groups” (Henry et al, 2004). Institutional racism is a facet of structural violence—but is by definition restricted to structural violence or cultural violence for which race is the catalyst and with racial bias or bigotry the sustaining element.

Structural violence is differentiated from direct violence both in terms of etiology and nature. D...

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...Australia, Perth

Mooney, G Collard, K Taylor, T (2003a) Costing cultural security, SPHERe Discussion Paper, Perth, Western Australia: Curtin University, Division of Health Sciences, viewed online 10th September 2011.

http://www.eniar.org/news/health7.html

Mooney, G (2003b). Inequity in Australian health care: how do we progress from here? Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 267-270. viewed online 4th September, 2011.

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/180_10_170504/hen10112_fm.html

Wakerman J, Tragenza J, Warchivker I (1999) Review of health services in the Kutjungka Region of WA. Perth: Office of Aboriginal Health, Health Department of Western Australia

Van Krieken, R Smith, P Habibis, D McDonald, K Haralambos, M Holborn, M (2000) Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, 2nd edn, Pearson Education Australia, Frenchs Forest.

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