Most Latin American (Latino) immigrants to the United States participate in the dominant health care system. [...] Oftentimes, while utilizing this health care system, they continue to use their own culturally appropriate health care practices [...] In curanderismo, santería, and espiritismo, the practitioners assess the patient and, depending on diagnosis, prepares a healing remedy or a variety of healing remedies. A remedy is any combination of medicinal herbs, religious amulets, and/or other products used for the prevention, treatment, or palliation of folk and somatic illnesses. It is usually administered by the practitioner and may involve several sessions.
Wealth of an individual, and their health are two contracting factors in America. Usually if an individual has more wealth they are considered to be healthier. However for the Mexican Americans, this contradicting theory seems to disappear. In the film Becoming American, researchers discovered that immigrant Latinos have the best health, even though they are considered one of the poorest, socially marginalized population. Latino’s are also considered to have the best health among one of the wealthiest communities, which enables them to the Latino paradox.
Although adolescence and young adulthood are generally healthy times of life, several important public health and social problems either peak or start during these years (Healthy People, 2015). For this discussion, I selected the scenario involving an adolescent Hispanic/Latino boy living in a middle-class suburb. When performing the health history interview of an adolescent many factors must be considered. Practitioner must also keep an open mind and respect patient cultural beliefs and values. “Family, religious beliefs, communication, and health beliefs have been noted in the literature as important cultural influences for Hispanic patients” (Hicks, 2012).
According to the American Journal of Public Health (2007), Latinos face distinctive challenges including limited English proficiency, display of mental health symptoms, and cultural principles that often result in misdiagnosis, besides auto-denial and rejection of treatment methods such as counseling or anti-depressive medication are only some of the social barriers encountered by research. Another research, ADAA (2009) highlights that nationally, less than 25% of Latinos (or about 1.3 million of the estimated 6.4 million) diagnosed with depressive or anxiety disorders have agreed to conventional medication to treat it. This number is significantly reduced when studying Mexican Americans who are even less likely to consent to antidepressants use. Education regarding mental health is increasing among Hispanic population; however, the vast unawareness is still currently a health concern. Depression and other mental illnesses have been considered a taboo; discussions regarding them are off limits during dinner table conversations.
The organization focus on services provided for Latinos. Those who participated were given a brief description. Those who were conducting the study informed the participate that their information
This article addresses the possible factors as to why Latino Americans have reported to be underutilizing treatments and responding poorly to treatments for substance use and abuse compared to other racial/ethnic groups in the United States. The main objective for the study was to assess the influence of family conflict on the substance abuse treatment response in a sample of Latino Americans by using two different analyses. Research has shown that substance use among Latino Americans is lower than the national average. However, they also indicated that Latino Americans are more likely to participate in risky behaviors and experience disproportional levels of consequences from the use of substances compared to other racial/ethnic groups such
In my opinion, in order to understand how socioeconomic status of Hispanics affects the quality of health care, more research still needs to be conducted. This research should be a collaboration between Hispanic communities and researchers, which would build trust and potentially increase sample sizes. Future studies should also take into consideration the cultural variety of Hispanic population. For example, current federal standards require federal agencies use Hispanic or Latino term. Hispanics are identified by Spanish surname, Spanish origin, Spanish language and birthplace in a Latin American country.
In order to receive medical opinion, individuals from Mexican origin must first agree to visiting a physician; and this is often just as problematic. B. Depression oversight, counseling and treatment can turn out to be expensive, it is not uncommon for individuals without insurance to avoid primary care. i. Payment options can discourage many amongst Hispanic culture in dealing with their depression, this is due to a large amount of them having no access to healthcare; either because of poverty level, residence, or immigration status. 1.
In recent years it has gotten worse as states move to adopt stricter immigration laws and policies (Sue & Sue,2013). For example, in states such as Arizona they have adopted a law that make it illegal for immigrants to be in the state without proper paperwork (2013). Law’s such as these combined with the discrimination and language barriers cause a great deal of stress to the hispanic population. Many in the Latino population are fearful of reaching out for government or medical assistance for fear of being deported, even if they are legal citizens (2013). This means that the there are members of the Latino population who may be suffering from mental illness such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD and which are all common side effects after being subjected to discrimination and racism ,(Chávez, & French, 2007 ) are not getting the services they need
According to the CDC Hispanics of Mexican origin make up approximately 17 percent of the population in the United States. They are the one of the largest cultural populations in U.S. has risen dramatically over last four decades. There are a variety of reason that lead to health disparities for the Hispanic community these reasons then lead to the individuals not obtaining healthcare. First, it was reported by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2012 that 29.1 percent of the Hispanic do not have health insurance. This usually prevents the majority of Hispanic people from receiving health care.
Immigrants face many barriers when it comes to gaining proper access to health care. Immigrants have the highest rate in the nation to not receive health insurance for the year. Not receiving health insurance is mainly due to the high cost of health care. Obtaining the proper health insurance is important for any human being because as humans we have to pay to be healthy. Immigrants come from their countries to seek better opportunities such as access to health care and health insurance.
The language barrier in healthcare creates a huge gap in communication, especially where there is a huge number of people from the Hispanic community coming in for health services. In order to learn more about this issue, on October 13, 2017, I interviewed Mary Kay Rosolie in La Red Health Center on her profession and what she goes through with the majority of her patients being Latinos. Not having the ability to speak Spanish builds a huge barrier in communication. Although Mrs. Rosolie has worked in the medical field for many years, she stated that it is extremely difficult to interact with a Spanish speaking family when they know little to no English. It used to be that when there was no available staff to translate they would have to call
Hispanics had inferior access to care than non-Hispanic Whites for 5 of 6 core measures. Also, Poor people had inferior access to care than high-income people for all 6 core measures (Stone,
They all have different aspects of health needs based on their background. For instance, Hispanics views on health care stem more from a traditional sense and contribute to some of the beliefs that get inherited from previous generations. In Health Law & Medical Ethics James Allen states that Hispanics have a unique way of looking at health and diseases which can affect how they receive treatment because they view diseases as being hot or cold (Allen, 2013, P.187). Hispanics believe that there should be a balance within the body and having natural forces applied to the body when one is sick like a hot treatment when one has a cold disease plays a role in achieving that balance. However, because they have this viewpoint it can sometimes contribute to them having a negative perception about following a healthcare physician’s advice in regards to treatment.
Minorities in the US are severely discriminated in many ways; such as employment, housing, health, education, incarceration. I would like to discuss the impacts of discrimination on Latinos health. Philosopher Descartes put forward the theory of interactionism that reveals the casual connection between two different substances; mind and body. A mental event is causally connected with a physical event, and vice-versa. I consider discrimination whether everyday or occasional as a physical event that causally affects Latinos mental world and eventually turn it into physical ones.