| | |Health Disparity And Its Victims | | | | | When one thinks of modern health care in the United States, patients receiving different quality health care than other patients because of race, gender, or age seems like something from the past. These differences, called health disparities, affect the morbidity and mortality of diseases by someone’s race, culture, environment, sex, age, socioeconomic status, etc. (AMA, 1995-2012). When speaking of health disparities, it is important to note that these differences will include not only a difference of disease according to the aforementioned list, but also a difference in regard to the type of facilities, access to care, and services available to those listed above. An example of health disparities, and how it affects the outcome of disease according to race, would be if African American males from an urban community had a higher mortality rate from cancer than a Caucasian male from a non-urban community.
Racial Barriers in Medical Interventions for Depression in African Americans Toyette’ M. Hazzard EH 1020, English Composition II Professor Catherine Croston June 15, 2012 Toyette’ M. Hazzard Professor Catherine Croston EH 1020, English Composition II June 15, 2012 Racial Barriers in Medical Interventions for Depression in African Americans Introduction Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders in the United States. Mayo Clinic (n.d.) defines depression as a medical illness that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. Depression is an illness that can affect one’s mood, body and thoughts. It’s a chronic illness that usually requires long-term treatment, like diabetes or high blood pressure. Depression can lead to many different types of emotional and physical issues.
Health disparity in the United States Introduction This study evaluates the effects of providing preventative healthcare to uninsured in the low income community of South Dallas. Moreover, the study focuses on measurement of the gains accruing from preventative care as well as the prevention of chronic diseases such as stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH, 2009), defined Health disparities as the various divergences prevalent in the access and availability of services as well as facilities. In addition, the institution in their report defined disparities in health status as the differences in the rates of occurrences in disease as well as disabilities, prevalent between geographical and socioeconomic population groups. Hordes of Americans have poor health status.
In order to improve the nation’s health and end the disproportion in health care to vulnerable populations, the social determinants of health must be addressed foremost in order to achieve an understanding of the issues that are affecting so many Americans and what must be done in the fight toward equality in the U.S. health care delivery system. All of the social factors are a part of a cycle, one affecting the other. Elements of each social factor influence the others in a specific way. These social factors mainly affect the underserved populations of racial and ethnic minorities, women and children, rural residents, the uninsured, homeless peoples, mental health patients, patients with chronic illness or disabilities, and HIV/AIDs patients. In the U.S., social factors are associated with lower overall health care usage and access (Shi & Singh, 2010).
Describe discriminatory practice in health and social care This part of the guide will explore age, social class, gender and sexuality discriminatory in health and social care. Discriminatory practices can happen for many reasons and can be shown through different behaviours .There are two types of discrimination. One is called overt discrimination; this is when you can tell discrimination is taken place for example one patient gets a better treatment than another patient. You could also have two service workers who have the same qualifications and do the same job but one gets paid more. Cover discrimination is when you can’t tell discrimination has taken place, for example someone could not get picked for a job just because of their age, social class, gender and sexuality.
Evaluate different sociological explanations of health and illness in two social groups (D1) Artefact explanation Strength of this explanation is that it gives an account of technical problems in measuring and defining health. However studies show the link between health and social class are not true to life. Different studies have been carried out and different measures of class and health have shown similar patterns. The amount of people in the lower classes always showing poor health has risen. Natural and social selection explanation One strength of this explanation is that it explains the persistence of high mortality and ill health in lower social classes.
Position Statement Cultural Cultural Competency Defining Cultural Competence Health care providers may experience challenges stemming from cultural differences when treating patients of various ethnicities, and these challenges may lead to suboptimal patient care. Current data shows that despite substantial advances in the overall health of Americans, health disparities persist among US racial and ethnic groups. A recent editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that miscommunications due to language barriers with Spanish, the most common non-English language spoken in the US, lead to substandard health care. For many individuals with limited English proficiency, inability to communicate in English is the primary barrier to accessing health information and services. Elimination of health disparities must be placed at the forefront of the country’s health priorities.
Issues Healthcare disparities refer to differences in access to or availability of facilities and services. Health status disparities refer to the variation in rates of disease occurrence and disabilities between socioeconomic and/or geographically defined population groups. If a health outcome is seen in a greater or lesser extent between populations, there is disparity. It will be important to understand the impact of disparity on the population groups. This chart demonstrates how disparity might impact different groups: From the HealthyPeople.gov website: • To better understand the context of disparities, it is important to understand more about the U.S. population.
Cultural Considerations Angelina Hopson Communication Skills for the Health Care Professional 2/12/2012 Professor Felencia H. McGee Cultural Considerations The Hispanics perception of health and health care is, that compared to whites they do not get the same suitable health care coverage, as in Native Americans, Asians, also Blacks, it was taken into consideration that, there is an issue with health care insurance status, age, sex, income, and also education, after considering all of these issues, the differences still continued, what was also examined was racial or ethnic health differences in care for depression, patients’ views of Medicaid managed care, treatment, of prostate cancer, mammography screening rates, Medicare expenditures
The study reflected health statistics in the states and the District. In the District, the study also found wide gaps between black and white women in the incidence of other illnesses such as cancer and HIV and AIDS. According to the study,