Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Two definitions of health
What is health essay
What is the definition of health essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Two definitions of health
Every health facility aims at providing quality health services to the members of the society. The efficiency of health practice depends on the quality of health studies and experience. Scholars investigate factors that affect health wellbeing of human beings and suggest measures to confront health threats. Nonetheless, lack of consensus in defining health and its disparities adversely affects the provision of health care. Determining a standard definition on both health disparities and health definition could offer a common ground for the health researchers and providers to address health issues; hence, improving health care delivery. Varied definitions of health are evident in medical studies. According to the World Health Organization, health is a condition of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing. The definition is opposed to the traditional view of health as the absence of disease (Barr, 2014). Studies suggest that definition of health should incorporate individuals, communities, and countries (Barr, 2014). A comprehensive definition of health should include all the aspects of health that consist physical, mental, physiological, economic, sociocultural, and, spiritual dimensions. All these aspects have the potential to alter an individual’s general health. Concerning these issues, physical health addresses the capability of a person to …show more content…
Addressing health issues requires a health definition that caters for all factors that affect well-being. Health agencies should advocate health provision equity through promoting health education, improving health access, and eliminating bias in care provision. Additionally, the government should emphasize education for all population groups to eradicate poverty, which is a health disparity
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.
Health disparity is one of the burdens that contributes to our healthcare system in providing equal healthcare to everyone regarding of race, age, race, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status to achieve good health. Research reveals that racial and ethnic minorities are likely to receive lower quality of healthcare services than white Americans.
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.
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.
Building a system to serve an underserved population may be difficult but it is not impossible. There are two major problems. There are cultural problems, historically based, related to the lack of trust in the dominate culture. And there are problems related to the stereotypical lenses the dominant culture chooses to wear. The dominate culture, who is in control of health services, and are fully aware of the health disparities but observe no profit, nor do they have the resources, in making a certain population of people are healthier. By identifying the concerned parties, the health disparities, and the problems that are ahead it is noted that positive outcomes will result
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.
Health inequalities in any country is an important issue. There are many reasons for inequalities in health, for example, gender and age, economic and social factors.
Recently, significant attention has focused on racial disparities in health care and health status in the medical community. Epidemiology and risk distribution are important for a wholesome medical education, and risk distribution by race can inform a clinician's diagnosis. However, when health care professionals identify race as a risk factor for certain diseases, that information may be disingenuous if the authors misperceive race with income, education, or behavior. In other words, many other factors besides race affect disease prediction, and are, in some cases, stronger predictors of disease and disease outcomes. In a study done by Sheets et al., evaluating the “validity of attributing race as a risk factor in a widely used pathology book…
Health disparities are different because they are based upon creating resolutions to better serve the needs of the population and environment. A health disparities helps to revolutionize the growth of medicine and public health. It the study of what lacks and measurement of improvements.
This broad topic has further been broken down to focus mainly on the level or quality of health care received by people of particular racial and ethnic groups and how this may differ, providing that any difference is found between these groups. For the purpose of this essay, the concept of health care refers to both medical and psychological health care.
There is a strong correlation with an individual or group SES and the quality of health care received. Social Economic Class relates to what group of class an individual fit in based on their income, which can include wages, investments or other source. The quality of care depends on the facilities that is offering the services, the staff, accessibility to the service and the kind of health insurance that the person has. Affording health care is expensive and the lower or poor class has to decide between being able to afford food or other daily needs and going to a clinic for screening. Most of the time, individuals who fall in the class will ignore the health signs while continue to work to feed the family. Individual who are in the middle class or upper class will have more access to resources such as better health insurance, access to better health facilities because they have cars and able to take a day from work, and having and higher education give you an advantage over other class. We can look at the southern belt to see how individuals with living in the southern states of the United States have deteriorating health and are more prone to diabetes, coronary heart disease, cancer and death.
In a truly just society, justice would lead to a heightening of the vulnerable patients making their health perhaps the only position of their life that is no longer vulnerable. Until social justice is applied to our geopolitical stage, gender and ethnicity differences will continue to limit work opportunities and fair pay. But, if we were to get the health component right, their health would not be a compounding factor in their vulnerability. Instead, good health can help to establish one’s capabilities to explore opportunities and better their lives. Whether it is Nussbaum’s (2000) exhaustive list of 10 essential capabilities or liberalism’s primary good (Almgren, 2013, p. 35), good health and well-being enables a person to fulfill their
Racial and ethnic healthcare disparities, often defined as the difference in which socially disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities experience worse health or greater health risks than more advantaged social groups1, has become a cause of concern as the US grows increasingly diverse. Quality healthcare access is already scarce amongst many Americans, but the effects are particularly apparent for minorities even within the greater context of groups with similar SES. Research shows that these disadvantaged minorities are at disproportionate risk of access to healthcare, experiencing worse healthcare outcomes, and being uninsured.2 As members of these groups enter end-of-life treatment, the
Research indicates that gender, race, social economic status, and sexual identity are factors in physical and mental health disparities (Whitfield et al., 2011). An informal interview was conducted to gain knowledge about an individual’s viewpoint of their physical and mental health across the lifespan. The questions were phrased to find out if the interviewee felt that the contextual factors played a role in their physical and mental health. It was interesting that the individual acknowledged one health disparity in her life and is aware that other populations experience more disparities’. The interview consisted of three parts: (1) demographic questions; (2) contextual factors related to physical health; (3) contextual factors related to
Public health as it is implicated in the lives of the community – it is important to conceptualise what this might mean. Moreover, public health has seen as a multidiscipline perspective in which it can be defined on many levels, and I find that it could be elusive to understand its meaning. By simple understanding of public health, I refer to an approach derived by Winslow (1920) and Baggott (2000).