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Racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare
Racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare
Racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare
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Discuss Barriers patients experience when accessing Health care resources: A barrier to health care restricts the use of health services by making it hard for some patients. There are many reason people can’t get the healthcare they need. If the patient cannot afford the health care they need, cost can be a barrier. Non-financial barriers prevent some peoples from getting the care they need. Accommodation, Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability are examples of non-financial barriers. Men have less accommodation and availability barriers than women, also non-black, non-Hispanic, minority more than whites. Also adults with poor health had a prevalence of non-financial barriers than healthy adults. (https://www.nwifi.org)“Medical liability reform is a new force in healthcare, decrease in doctors practicing and the high cost of healthcare are created barriers for many individuals” (www.idealessaywriters.com) Language, literacy and cultural …show more content…
Care providers have to be extra careful when trying to find out a child symptoms by asking parents to explain differences in language or ethnicity, a care provider that does not know how to use an interpreter. If a care provider and patient are from different culture. Understanding of illness or treatment may vary; newcomers may feel stigmatized and avoid mentioning health issues. Some women avoid seeking care if their providers are male particularly for screening. (https://www.kidsnewtocanada) The largest barrier to patient safety is lack of teamwork, negative culture and poor communicate. Emily Rhinehart RN, Vice president, says “given that nearly half of every dollar spent on healthcare costs is related to a medical error, improvements in patient safety will
Gaining access to health care can be rather difficult for immigrants. There always seem to be some sort of obstacle in the way. For example, the cost of health care is skyrocketing. Immigrants whether they are legal aliens or illegal aliens are impacted the most by high health care costs. Each year the numbers for health care change but they never seem to get lower. Immigrants lack health care insurance due to the high cost of health care.
According to Penner et al. (2013), there are various causes of healthcare disparities, such as socioeconomic status; this results to poor healthcare services for people with low socioeconomic status, as people with low pay find it difficult to leave their work to seek healthcare help, or to afford healthcare insurance (p.4). The second cause is language proficiency. The language barriers faced by the immigrant plays a role in the healthcare disparities among the racial or ethnic minority patients. Another cause is health literacy. The levels of the health literacy among the foreign born individuals can be influenced by their higher level of distrust of the healthcare providers and healthcare system than they have towards Caucasian people. This, in turn, leads them to seek healthcare information less often than their Caucasian counterparts, thus hindering the provision of quality services, as well as limiting the foreign patients’ ability to manage their health conditions effectively. The foreigners’ failure to easily accept the information provided to them by healthcare providers puts them at risk. Disentangling the role of health literacy in racial healthcare disparities from the effects of racial attitudes and beliefs is often hard (Penner et al,
The goal of this lesson is to explore how we can improve communication to eliminate language barriers between healthcare providers and patients in our organization and to establish culturally and linguistically appropriate goals, that provide safe, equal, and quality care to all our clients regardless of race, ethnic, or socioeconomic status. At the end of this lesson we should be
Many factors such as sociocultural, financial and structural issues create barriers to healthcare access for individuals living in rural America. Sociocultural factors include self-reliance, education, language and beliefs; financial factors include inadequate health insurance, income and resources; structural issues include the physical distance to travel, ability to travel and time to travel to healthcare facilities or healthcare professionals (Graves, 2008).
Healthcare disparities are when there are inequalities or differences of the conditions of health and the quality of care that is received among specific groups of people such as African Americans, Caucasians, Asians, or Hispanics. Not only does it occur between racial and ethnic groups, health disparities can happen between males and females as well. Minorities have the worst healthcare outcomes, higher death rates, and are more prone to terminal diseases. For African American men and women, some of the most common health disparities are diabetes, cancer, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and HIV infections. Some factors that can contribute to disparities are healthcare access, transportation, specialist referrals, and non-effective communication with patients. There is also much racism that still occurs today, which can be another reason African Americans may be mistreated with their healthcare. “Although both black and white patients tended not to endorse the existence of racism in the medical system, African Americans patients were more likely to perceive racism” (Laveist, Nickerson, Bowie, 2000). Over the years, the health care system has made improvements but some Americans, such as African Americans, are still being treating unequally when wanting the same care they desire as everyone else.
These differences in origin accounts for diversity in socio-cultural backgrounds and nurses must develop the knowledge and the skills to engage patients from different cultures and to understand the beliefs and the values of those cultures (Jarvis, 2012). If healthcare professionals focus only on a narrowly defined biomedical approach to the treatment of disease, they will often misunderstand their patients, miss valuable diagnostic cues, and experience higher rates of patient noncompliance with therapies. Thus, it is important for a nurse to know what sociocultural background a patient is coming from in order to deliver safe an effective
What are Health disparities? Health disparities are "preventable difference in the burden of disease, violence, injury or opportunities to meet optimal health experienced by socially disadvantaged populations". This population can be defined by elements such as race, gender, income, career and geographical location. Health disparities are biased and are related to the historical and uneven distribution of social, economic, political and environmental features. Some of this features include poverty, ecological risks, limited access to health care, educational discriminations and individual and behavioral factors. Some people believe that health disparities are ethically wrong because it demonstrates historical inequality. some ethical values of important in bioethics such as "Kantian ethics, contractarian ethics, and utilitarian ethics have provided theoretical justification" on why health disparities are ethically wrong. While most people believe in the unfairness of these approach to health care solutions, others sorely believe that this approach is beneficiary for those that can't afford proper care due to cost because of their financial limitation, geographical location, ethnicity/race or gender orientation. In this paper, I will expatiate on some disadvantages subsidized by this factors to the population in concern and will cite some of the difficulties faced by these populations due to their inadequate access to good or better health care.
The other problem involves access to health care. Americans enjoy limited or no access to health care. Many efforts have been made to reform this, but still many people are left without access to the care. These two problems are related to the fact that if the health care industry gets too high, of course, people will no longer be able to have access to it. The higher prices are, the lower access people have to it.
The article “Of disparities and diversity: Where are we?” helped me better understand the health experiences of women and how disparities remain a persistent problem today. There were certain disparities of some people not having insurance, having limited access to care, not get proper care and of course having negative health outcomes. Race and ethnicity are the common factors of disparities in healthcare but social and environmental factors play a major part in it too. It is said that this world is becoming more diverse. The population is becoming more heterogeneous. It is estimated that Hispanics and blacks will populate over half of the U.S. That said, since the people of color make up the majority of those that are uninsured and have low income it will be even more important to address healthcare disparities. So now there is more efforts to focus on the disparities to prevent them from continuing.
Pincus, T., Esther, R., DeWalt, D.A., & Callahan, L.F., (1998) Social conditions and self-management are more powerful determinants of health than access to care. Ann Intern Med. 1998 Sep 1;129(5):406-11.
Marmot in his famous article titled Social Determinants of Health Inequalities firmly stated that actions targeted to improve healthcare access should not be focused only on healthcare system but rather on the social determinants of health. Marmot reiterated that health inequalities, disparities and social determinants of health are totally preventable through more inclusive wider social policies. He insists that inequalities of health between and within geographical areas can be reduced through positive actions.3 And such actions should be focused towards improving the social determinants of health in all areas to give everyone equal access to healthcare services.2-3 Explaining that lack of healthcare access are driven by SDOH, Marmot further argues that health cannot be improved by itself alone, but by enhancing those factors that determine health.
Even African Americans who are working, high poverty rates and high insurance rates continue to erode their access to care. Across all ages and notably by age 50, African Americans are living with higher rates of chronic diseases” (Scott, 2002). Because of their high poverty level, this population is faced with barriers such as availability of health service and acceptability. Some providers refused to see people on public assistance or who are uninsured. The geographic location of some of these health facilities causes accessibility problem. Some of these people with chronic diseases such as diabetes only have hospital care. Others refuse care because they believe lack of insurance will cause the physicians to use them for practice or experimentation
Instead, African Americans face systemic barriers to quality healthcare that exacerbate existing health disparities. Along with other racial and ethnic minority groups, African Americans are considered an underserved group in the US healthcare system. In Essentials of the U.S. Health Care System, Shi & Singh define underserved populations as “population groups in the United States [that] either face greater barriers than the general population in accessing timely and needed health care services or…have special health-related issues that may go unaddressed” (2017). For many African Americans, these barriers may include a distrust of medical institutions, provider biases, poorer access to primary care, poorer quality of care, lack of insurance, and low socioeconomic status, among others (Disparities in Healthcare Quality, 2012). One consequential example of this access disparity is seen in access to prenatal care. Prenatal care has the potential to reduce nutrition deficits and improve birth outcome for high risk pregnant individuals (National Institutes of Health, n.d.). Despite this, African Americans, who have some of the highest rates of poor birth outcomes, have some of the highest
Access to health care refers to the ease with which an individual can obtain needed medical services. Many Americans face barriers that make it difficult to obtain basic health care services. These barriers to services include lack of availability, high cost, and lack of insurance coverage. "Limited access to health care impacts people's ability to reach their full potential, negatively affecting their quality of life." (Access to Health Services, 2014) Access to health services encompasses four components that include coverage, services, timeliness, and workforce
According to the Migration Policy Institute, the most current data shows the United States as having 42.4 million immigrants (Zong & Batalova, 2016). This leads us to reason number two, which involves these diverse multicultural families that want their beliefs and values to be understood by those in the medical field. Reason number three is that sometimes the increased use of technology can cause conflicts with the values of patients. An example of this would be communication between a healthcare worker and a family that does not understand technological instruments, such as a life-saving device or intubation. Reason number four recognizes that conflicts can lead to confrontation and violence as cultures intermingle with one another, which can impact a patient’s care. Number five acknowledges that there has been an increase in people relocating to different parts of the world for work. According to Jelinek (n.d.), a healthcare worker must be aware of the local culture when you are working in a diversified area that may have a different culture and belief than your own. Otherwise, you risk a communication barrier that could affect the patient’s care. Number six involves the ramifications of the negligence