When people hear the word inequality they think of inequality as a circumstance just involving race, things like being unequal with another person cause of your skin color or cause of your traditions. However, inequality covers many other broad factors one factor other than race being income inequality. In “Inequality Has Been Going on Forever…but That Doesn’t Mean It’s Inevitable.” (The New York Times, 02.05.14), David Leonhardt points out that Income inequality has come to be extremely high, the middle class is shrinking while the rich become richer. This attitude is encouraged by various factors: society, taxation, and how much time has passed.
Health disparities is not only a Clayton County issue but a national issue as well. Consequently, Healthy People 2020 initiated a decisive goal to reduce health disparities among all Americans by the year 2020. One of this goals of Healthy People 2020 is the reduction of infant mortality rate among Americans to a target goal of 6.0 deaths per 1,000 live births.1 In 2015, infant mortality rates for black non-Hispanics were 2.2 times that of white non-Hispanics. As it relates to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) black non-Hispanics mothers were 2 times greater than that of white non-Hispanics mothers.
In the healthcare field, the definition of health occupies multiple meanings such as; • The condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit. • Freedom from physical disease or pain. • Condition or state. • State of complete physical, mental, and social well being To me, the definition of health means more than just the absence of disease. The definition of health includes all aspects of emotional, physical and nutritional balance.
Summary of Findings This project discusses key health disparities that exist between Blacks and Whites in the United States Health Care System. This analysis also discusses the historical origins of the health disparities that exist between Blacks and Whites in the U.S. Health care system. This analysis describes the complex social, political and health factors of health disparities between Black and Whites. This describes the steps individuals can take to combat racism and decrease health disparities among African Americans and whites.
Integrated healthcare is key to eliminating mental and physical health disparities by addressing the needs of people based on their differences in their race, socio-economic status, and culture. An integrated healthcare organization is competent of responding to a community with challenges of long standing health disparities. Healthcare professionals in an integrated system are cross-trained in both physical and behavioral health to handle the challenges of mental and physical health disparities. It improves the quality of care of the population by lowering costs, enhancing patient access, and improving the life of both individuals and families. The con of addressing the long standing health disparity is managing the care of patients and
Those who work in the health care field can create and promote a plan for decreasing disparities in health care. Interventions can also be held based upon one 's race, social status, age, or any of the other factor contributing to health disparities. Providing health care equally to all people will also assist in ending disparities. If everyone is given equal opportunities and treatment, then everyone will be at a fair advantage for good health despite their race, geographic location, age, or socioeconomic structure. References Causes of Health Disparities.
With the ongoing changes on policies in healthcare, it is imperative to consider the legal and ethical issues in health disparities and access to care based on the socioeconomic status. Research have shown over the past 25 years that disparities in the quality of care are highly influenced by individual characteristics such as race, gender, ethnicity, education, income, and age. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) recognized that providing care is not simply a “one size fits all” approach especially with the diverse population in today’s society. As healthcare professionals, we need to be alert and know how to properly intervene with such disparities so that the care provided is tailored to the individual.
Inequality is often associated with racial injustice, but actually goes beyond that and has created new ways for social inequality to exist among various circumstances in our country. It affects millions in terms of their way/ quality of life. In the United States and around the world, civilians struggle to receive adequate health care at the expense of their day jobs, hindering them from this as they cannot afford it. The middle has been struggling for decades over the same issues, yet permanent action has yet to transform the country. The issue of inequality has recinfoced itself in health care and income and continues to manifest itself in our society today leading to social problems in which we cannot escape making it an institutional
Health Care in the US is arguably available to all who seek it but not everybody has had the same experience and treatment when walking through the doors of a healthcare facility. In many cases, people are discriminated against due to their gender, race/ethnicity, age, and income and are often provided with minimal service. Differences between groups in health coverage, access to care, and quality of care is majorly affected through these disparities. Income is a major factor and can cause groups of people to experience higher burden of illness, injury, disability, or mortality relative to another group.
Many Americans were led to believe that the introduction of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2009 would put an end to disparities in health care access. While it did improve the situation for a small percentage of the population there are still many Americans who lack access to good quality health care. Health care access in America is determined by money and those in lower socioeconomic groups frequently tend to miss out on adequate care. In a recent health care report by the national health research foundation Kaiser Family Foundation, it was noted “health care disparities remain a persistent problem in the United States, leading to certain groups being at higher risk of being uninsured, having limited access to care, and experiencing poorer quality of care” (Kaiser Family Foundation). The current health care
The term social determinants of health, can be defined as a ‘set of conditions in which people are born, grow up, live and work.’ These conditions include housing, education, financial security and the environment along with the healthcare service. (http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/438838/01.12_Health_inequalities_and_the_social_determinants_of_health.pdf) These factors are affected by the amount of money, power and resources that are available at a global, national and local level. Social determinants of health are linked to health inequalities according to the World Health Organisation, health inequalities are ‘the unfair and avoidable differences in health status seen within and between countries.’
The American society has almost always experienced a certain amount of inequality that mostly concern three main issues: economic, racial and gender. All these inequalities are similar in some ways. Methods of reducing them can be similar too. There are two main factors that have the potential to decrease the level of all three types of inequality and they are political and social.
However, it is important to note that Nwankwo, Nandy and Nwankwo (2010) pointed out that socioeconomic factors may also influence whether or not clients’ attend clinic. This may be as a result of the client not having money or lack support from family members to attend the clinic. Those clients’ who do attend clinic may or may not be able to afford the direct and indirect cost associated with prescribed diabetic regimen received from the health care professional.
Health Care Disparities Health care disparities are unfortunate and being culturally competent is an essential step toward eliminating these inequalities. In this discussion, I will review what disparities are associated with the Appalachian culture and how they affect health status, employment, and education. I will also identify two nursing interventions that could be taken to help decrease the affect that health disparities have on the Appalachians and review what the biggest challenge would be when implementing the interventions. There are about 27 million people that live in the area defined as the Appalachian region, which spans 13 states.
This essay aims to identify and evaluate the inequalities in health care in different areas of society, namely disability and gender. Firstly, it is important to understand what we mean by health inequalities. It is commonly understood that health inequality refers to unjust differences in the health status, usually preventable, between different groups, populations or individuals. The existence of such inequalities is attributed to the unequal distributions of social, environmental and economic conditions within societies. Such conditions determine the risk of individuals getting ill, their ability to prevent sickness, as well as opportunities to access to the right treatments.
