Efforts to Combat Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities in America
Abstract
This paper gives a brief overview of health disparities which exist between the minority groups and White population. The paper will also come up with the Action Plans which the HHS or Health and Human Services are taking to eliminate the health disparities. Ethnic disparities in America has become a concern since this is an issue which has existed for several decades. For example, the U.S department of health care has noticed that Black women experience a high rate of infant death than White women. When it comes to insurance matters, adults from ethnic groups are uninsured and they are also denied quality care compared with White women. These and many other reasons have made the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) to put concern in order to ensure that the entire population of U.S which is made up by White and ethnic groups get the quality care and also to ensure that ethnic disparities are eliminated. The department is taking all measures to create awareness on this burning issue and this is a major focus of this country in 21st century. Since the issue is a challenge to the whole nation, measures to eliminate the health disparities is a national agenda and the most important thing in this agenda is to come up with the most important policy to combat the whole problem. Generally, the purpose of this paper is to do a comprehensive research to find out the measures or efforts which the country is taking to eliminate the ethnic disparities in health issues.
Introduction
U.S is a diverse country made up by various minority groups. Even though White population covers the higher percentage of population, minority groups also contributes the entire high population. For example, in the current population, the blacks comprises 12% of the population, non-Hispanic comprises 67%, Hispanic 14%, Asian makes 4% and native Indian American makes 1% (Rossen & Schoendorf, 2014). By viewing these figures, the research has shown that the number of minorities will increase and for the next few years to come the minorities will make 50% of the whole population. Health disparities exist between the White population and minority population. Major differences are seen in the quality care, life expectancy and other areas. A research on ethnic disparities has shown that a large number of people living in America live a poor life but the most challenging thing is that most of them are minority groups. For the most part, the poor living is brought by poor health care. It is important to note that the minority groups are discriminated in terms of insurance coverage, education and other related issues (Rossen & Schoendorf, 2014). Such issues contribute to lack of quality care thereby increasing the risk of developing more diseases due to lack of quality care. The research done shows that the situation is getting better as medical advances in U.S are making the healthier lives of people and in particular the minority who are highly affected. It is the high time for the HHS to eliminate the differences which arises from social, environmental and economic factor since these are the key area which the minorities get challenges. These are issues which need steps to be taking towards raising awareness (LaVeist & Isaac, 2013). The action plans which the HHS is taking complement the strategies which can be set in order to get health equity between the entire population. On the health equality, the National Partnership for Action (NPA) is responsible for that and its major purpose is to unite the entire community and to create collaboration to ensure that there is equality in health care and health disparities is eliminated (LaVeist & Isaac, 2013). The NPA also creates goals and objectives, programs with best practices and policies. All these strategies which the NPA makes are to offer direction to the national leaders of private and public sectors and ensure that each sector has its roles on eliminating the disparities which exists between the minority and Whites in health care matters (LaVeist & Isaac, 2013).
Ethnic Health Disparities in America
Research and studies on the figures below have shown that minority groups have experienced difficulties when it comes to quality health care due to lack of insurance coverage. This has become a concern since this is an issue which has toughened the lives of minorities. According to the research, the number of minorities who lack insurance coverage has been increasing and this means that it is hard for minority groups to get quality health care services (Mead et al, 2008). It is important to note that insurance status arise from factors such as cost which leads to a large number of low-income families thereby making it hard for them to access quality care. Other factor is lack of knowledge and this hinders them to enroll in public programs and so they are not eligible for support. The graph below shows how minorities are denied health insurance due to ethnic disparities (Mead et al, 2008).
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The figure below shows that African Asian American has a higher rate of death which results from lack of quality care. They have the high rate of heart diseases of all the population. Statistics shows that they have the risk of getting heart diseases due to blood pressure as they lack the right medication. The high rate of death arises from poor health due to low income, lack of insurance coverage and these makes them to lack access to quality care thereby increasing chronic illnesses (Mead et al, 2008). . The chronic illnesses reduce the life expectance of minority groups and this is an issue which has been put into concern. In addition, health disparities is evidence in minority groups particularly in Black men and this also shows that there is gender difference and men are more discriminated and denied their rights such as access to quality care than women (Mead et al, 2008).
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Health status is an issue which has highly contributed to health disparities among minorities. Difference on health status among minority groups and White arises as a result of low income, work status, segregation, environmental factors among other issues (Mead et al, 2008). The worse condition of living contributes to diseases which go up being chronic as a result of lack of care. Several studies have shown that minorities lacks effective communication with caregivers and the linguistic barriers hinders them from getting quality care and they end up living a poor life with poor health.
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Non-Hispanic black women in America face a high rate of infant mortality due to lack of special care. The mortality rate is as a result of ethnicity differences which exist between White women and Black. In addition, a large number of infants have low birth weight compared with Hispanic infants. The poor outcomes affect their overall living and affect the minority population (Mead et al, 2008). Preterm birth also happens to Black women as they lack special care while they are pregnant and they are treated with a special treatment compared with native women.
Efforts to Combat Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities
HHC is working in partnership with sectors to combat the health disparities and remove the barriers which arises from ethnic, socioeconomic and geographical factors which are contributing to the inequality. Through identifying the major causes of the problem such as social determinants, behavior factor and ethnicity, HHC will be in a position to provide measures. HHC has objectives and goals to achieve equaty in health services, eliminate disparities and to ensure that American people lives a quality and a healthier life. HHC has put much effort to ensure that they have achieved their goals and objectives and more important they eliminate the disparities (Williams, 2007).
The Obama Care
The HHC effort and action plans are fixed on Obama care to ensure that every person receives insurance coverage, insurance reform and prevention. The Obama Care is also responsible of ensuring that the health disparities are eliminated through prevention and awareness through own care. Through provision of insurance coverage, HHC will maintain quality improvement as well as national prevention. HHC effort is also fixed on the initiatives such as Health People 2020 (Williams, 2007). HHC has a vision of accomplishing equality in health care among all gropes. In order to achieve the equality, HHC will work hard to eliminate the chronic disease, reduce the death rates and injuries among all races. HHC has other initiatives known as Let’s Move! (Williams, 2007). This was established by Michelle Obama. Through these initiatives, HHC will ensure health equality by eliminating the childhood obesity, health life for children, offering pregnancy care, and empowering pregnant women. Among various initiatives, HHC also puts its focus on infrastructure in order to reduce the challenges which hinder access to quality care. HHC will ensure that there will be no silos but rather there will be offices build for the department. HHC is also making an effort to form partnership with federal department in order to collaborate and form a team which will offer best practice to offer health equality (Williams, 2007).
Health care transformation
HHC is making much effort on transforming the health care system through securing the insurance coverage and through ensuring that all people gets quality care. Through Affordable Care Act, HHC will be able to transform the system and meet the goals (Williams, 2007). Through transformation, there is an effort to improve primary care, form a connection between the current social services and traditional health matters. Renovation in health care system will also bring new invention of technology which will therefore reduce disparities through new methods of offering quality care (Williams, 2007).
Reinforcing the National health, workforce and infrastructure
HHC put more effort in addressing matters on primary care, health providers, care workers as well as community workers. HHC puts focus on the workforce since there is a high rate of national diversity between workforces in U.S population (Williams, 2007). On this point, HHC is ensuring that the gap which exists between the workforces is eliminated. They do this through eliminating the language barriers, encouraging interactions, strengthening cultural competence among other best practices.
Strengthening the well-being, safety and health of people
HHC puts much effort on these areas to ensure that ethnic minorities gets quality care. Through these best practices, HHC will create conducive environment for reducing diseases and providing a healthy living. In this case, community-based practices will apply in order to eliminate the risk behaviors (Williams, 2007). In addition, community based-practices will help in implementing the intervention which will fill the gap which exists between native and minority groups. In order to ensure the well-being of people, HHC will have to implement education campaign which will raise awareness. The education will play a great role as it will give an important message to both ethnic and Native Americans on prevention services (Williams, 2007).
Innovation and scientific knowledge
Through this advance, HHC will ensure quality care among minorities and natives. Innovation will help in providing prevention measures, diagnosis, screening as well as best practices. Innovation of technology and scientific knowledge will also transform the health care system which will nourish the quality care through biomedical research (Williams, 2007). In these areas, HHC will implement strategies which will be used to providing useful information as well as resources which the federal department will use in forming collaborative measures. Scientific knowledge will also contribute to the expansion of health care research and this will help in training and future research (Williams, 2007). In this case, research will be in a position to do a comprehensive research based on health issues, and how both minority and natives can get quality care.
Accountability, Efficacy and Transparency increase
HHC is making an effort to the efficiency of their programs. HHC has found that in order to eliminate health disparities, it is important to include efficient programs, coordination, transparent measures, health infrastructure, transparency as well as accountability (Williams, 2007). HHC will also implement the open-government activities which will assist people in applying the best practices in their communities which can improve quality care. In these areas, HHC will ensure that funding to eliminate health disparities is offered. The funding will be offered to states, tribes as well as organization for them to conduct the best practices in their communities. Through the community activities supported by the funds, the community will eliminate health disparities, inefficiencies and come up with useful opportunities (Williams, 2007).
Conclusion
The paper has offered a comprehensive research on health disparities in U.S and it is clear that the country’s population is made up by both native and minorities. The health disparities affects the minority groups in a high rate where studies and research have seen that they live a poor live, lack quality care and all these are rooted from socioeconomic factors. The important thing to note that HHC is a department which is working hard day and night to ensure that the health disparities are eliminated and that all American people whether minority or natives gets quality health care. HHC takes Action Plans, sets goals and strategies to reduce health care disparities. ACA is much better in the activities of reducing disparities as it carries all the reduction activities which are required in combating this issue.
Reference
Williams, R. A. (2007). Eliminating healthcare disparities in America: Beyond the IOM report. Totowa, N.J:
Humana Press.
Holly Mead, Lara Cartwright-Smith, Karen Jones,Christal Ramos, Kristy Woods, and Bruce Siegel
(2008). Racial and Ethnic Disparities in U.S Health Care: A Chartbook.
Rossen, L. M., & Schoendorf, K. C. (2014). Trends in Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Infant
Mortality Rates in the United States, 1989-2006. American Journal Of Public Health,
104(8), 1549-1556.
LaVeist, T. A., & Isaac, L. A. (2013). Race, ethnicity, and health: A public health reader. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
