More handpicked essays just for you.
What is the social determinants of health
Social determinants of health esaay
Social determinants of health esaay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: What is the social determinants of health
For decades, a person’s socioeconomic status or SES has affected the health care that people receive due to race and “wealth”. This problem has plagued American society because of these factors leading to many receiving inadequate health care. All of these factors for someone’s SES, has changed a lot in the health care domain that is unfair to many who are not the “ideal” and are a minority. Due to this the perception, experiences with health care waver and are different between the stages of these SES’s. No matter the status of a person they should receive the same amount of care, treatment, and closer.
According to Baldwin (2003) health care disparities are the differences in health and health care between population groups including race, socioeconomic status, age, location, gender, disability, and sexual orientation. Disparities limits the improvements of quality health care which could result in unnecessary health care expenses. Factors that are contributing to disparities within today’s society are lack of access to quality health care and the number of individuals who are uninsured. As the population continue to grow and become more diverse health care disparities will continue to increase.
Health disparities are the different kinds of illness that occur among different population groups. Over the years, technology has advanced as well as education but they have only helped out certain groups dealing with health disparities as there still are problems involving health disparities. One reason health disparities still exist is due to race and ethnicity. Depending on your racial and ethnical background plays a huge factor in health disparities.
A link between poverty, low educational attainment and poorer health outcomes with increased morbidity and mortality is well established (Causes of Health Disparities, n.d.). Also, certain religious practices may not allow one person to obtain the believed cure or care needed to prevent certain illnesses and diseases. A lack of income and low educational attainment decreases one 's chances of having quality access to healthcare. If one is not able to afford health care or is ignorant to what the health care field has to offer, illness and disease may build up over time, increasing chances for a health disparity. Gender and age could also cause one not to want to obtain health care, furthermore decreasing their health.
In conducting reviews of research related to health disparities and lack of access to healthcare for minorities, there are several articles that cite data and methods that show the relationship to minorities with low SES are significantly impacted. According to the peer reviewed article, “Reducing Health Disparities in Underserved Communities” there is a significant disparity in access to healthcare for minorities health services among whites, blacks, and Hispanics over the past two decades. The article also cited several causes to this lack of access such as
Health care disparity according to U.S National Library of Medicine (2017) “typically refers to differences between groups in health insurance coverage, access to and use of care, and quality of care”. The purpose of this research was to identify the different factors that prevent San Bernardino County residents from accessing quality healthcare and identify specific groups affected. Our research has concluded , social economics status, gender, race and ethnicity to be major factors in San Bernardino County that have created these healthcare disparities. According to the Kaiser Permanente Community Health Needs Assessment San Bernardino County (CHNA 2013 ) the impact of economic instability, unemployment, homelessness and transportation,
Expanding accessibility to affordable healthcare insurance is one way in which our country can begin to increase healthcare that is patient and family centered. One reason for existing disparities are the expenses associated with seeking healthcare. For some people, while the actual monthly payments of their health insurance is affordable, patients still face high deductibles or high out of pocket maximums. By making health insurance attainable for the majority of Americans, this alone is only the first step toward reducing some of the existing health disparities. Money alone is a factor that can deter people from seeking preventive treatment and screenings.
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
Thus, premature death and preventable losses of quality of life are probable outcomes. Elderly individuals may be less frequently provided the best data-supported healthcare simply because they are old. Thus, bias or prejudice against the aged may be a significant cause. Furthermore, Africa-American have poorer access to care than Whites, for one-third of core measures. Asians and American Indian/Alaska Native had shoddier access to care than Whites for 1 of 5 core measures.
46.8 million Americans were reported as uninsured in 2013, which equivocates to one sixth of the population. Those without insurance have revealed that they risk “more problems getting care, are diagnosed at later disease stages, and get less therapeutic care” (National Health Care Disparities Report) and those insured risk losing their insurance. Inadequately covered citizens are often working-class individuals who simply cannot receive insurance due to uncontrollable inconveniences and therefore jeopardize having medical coverage. In these instances, Americans have a chance of being diagnosed with diseases that they had no opportunity to prevent or could not diagnose them at an early stage of the illness. Patients have suffered unnecessarily due to lack of health care, and “18,000 Americans die every year because they don't have health insurance” (PNHP).
The Fraser Institute’s World Index of Economic Freedom (Area 5B) provides a measure of how regulated a country labor market is. It takes into account minimum wage, hiring and firing regulations, existence of centralized collective bargaining, hours regulations, mandated cost of worker dismissal or even conscription. D.1.7 Health inequality (health_inequality) Part of income inequality may also be driven by inequality in access to the healthcare system.
People in the United States with fewer resources are more at risk of having poor health because medical expenses are expensive. Sometimes even having a health plan is pretty costly, because you are required to pay a co-pay at the end of your visit, and sometimes there are extra costs for medicine. Adding to the fact that less money means less advantageous for cleaner, safer, and better products. Having less money, not only in the United States, but in other countries is difficult, less money grants you less access to many resources and opportunities that can help reduce your health risk factor. Health care doesn’t always cover everything, mainly just the basic of care, and even then health care may be difficult, awaiting for the system
With the minority and lower social statuses being looked down upon they may not be able to receive as good health insurance, doctors which is making the discrepancies in health today. For example the major differences are between whites and blacks, racism is still a factor today and can rule out either one. They both can have the same income, health, and wellness only one is provided with the help they need. “People trust doctors with very personal information and expect individualized treatment; and doctors use specific props and scripts to assert their power.” (Conley) Basically meaning, if a
Attention has recently been focused on measuring equality and fairness of households’ contributions to health system. World Health Organization (WHO) argued that health system payments are organized in a way that the burden of payments are equalized across all households in the country. Households’ financial contribution to health system varies across different countries and there is a vast literature on indices to measure income distribution and application of income distribution to health care systems (Xu et al.
Recent developments of commissioning Health Visitors to Local Authority in United Kingdom have led to a renewed interest in public health nursing services in 0-19. Dorset local Authority are also very critical of the new policy shift, paper such as written by Aart and colleague (2009), Hemingway and others (2015) showed that nursing cadres underpinned by capacity development are important for the beneficial impact to population. Although some research has been done globally, a systematic understanding of how public health nursing contributes to reducing inequalities in health of children is still lacking. The research to date has tended to focus on inequalities in health rather than public health nursing services.
