2013 American Community Survey Strengths And Weaknesses

Among minorities such as Asians, Hispanics, Indians, Native Americans, and Middle Easterners, the African American race has been affected tremendously by the health disparities in the United States. Currently, African Americans have significantly higher mortality rates from cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, HIV, unintentional injuries, pregnancy, sudden infant death syndrome, and homicide than do whites Americans (Fiscella & Williams, 2004). While African Americans may lead in these categories, other minorities are not far behind in experiencing health disparities.

Potter and Perry (2017) states, “Health disparities are preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health.” Health disparity is experienced by social disadvantaged populations. These vulnerable populations can include race or ethnicity, gender, education, income, disability, and geographic location (Potter & Perry, 2017, p. 33). The Banes family

Many factors contribute to differing racial and ethnic health needs, including culture norms, religious mandates, and health disparities. The health disparities refers to specific differences in disease incidence, health outcomes, quality of health care and access to health care services that exist across racial and ethnic groups (Mandal, 2014). Disparities may result from inadequate access to care, poor quality of care, cultural issues and social determinants.

Health disparities endure tenacious issues in the United States of America, setting certain groups at higher risk of being uninsured, limited access to care, facing a poorer quality of care, and overall negative health outcomes. The high incidence of health disparities reflects the range of individual, social, economic, racial/ethnic and environmental magnitudes. Among the minority groups, African-Americans disproportionately access health care and the health disparities clearly glow in the nationwide.

Healthy People 2020 basically describes a health disparity as a difference in health trends in a community that is closely related to low socio-economics. Disparities adversely affect populations who have experienced greater obstacles to health based on their socioeconomic status, age, mental health or other characteristics historically linked to systematic discrimination or exclusion (Healthy People 2020).

This paper will include definitions of health equity and health inequity, steps to reduce health inequity, and two important decisions used to decrease in health inequity and why this reduction in health inequity occurs. It will also include further discussion on certain steps and decisions used to decrease health inequity.

A variety of challenges including personal, social, economic, and environmental factors can determine the health of an individual as well as its community. Others determinants of health include genetics, access to medical care, and socioeconomic measures such as education and poverty. Any interference among these factors can often lead to health disparities, which are health gaps that exist between different communities and populations. Health disparities can affect communities based on gender, age, race, social status, economic status, or special care needs. Therefore to understand which factors affect the health of a community, it is necessary to examine the social and economic conditions in which people live in, as well as the rates of diseases

The aim of this paper is to gain information and knowledge about health disparities. The objectives are to understand what is a disparity, to determine if in fact there are health disparities, to learn who are the target of disparities, to recognize how does a disparity affect the target, and most importantly to assess how can a disparity be eliminated. In addition, this paper will narrow its research to a specific minority: The American Indian elderly population.

People often interpret the word disparities as only having to do with race or ethnicity, however the term goes beyond that and includes sex, sexual identity, age, disability, socioeconomic status, and geographic location (“U.S. Department of Health,” 2011). The goal of Healthy People has changed over the decades, at first it was to reduce health disparities, then it was to eliminate disparities, and now for 2020 it is to achieve health equality, eliminate disparities, and improve the health of all groups of people (“U.S. Department of Health,” 2011).

Healthcare disparities have been an issue all over the world for a very long time. The purpose of this paper is to give you knowledge on disparities within the health care environment. This paper will discuss the definition of disparities, types of disparities, reasons for disparities, statistical data from trends and reports, and information on disparities elimination and improvements.

While there is no clear definition of what health disparities are, Healthy People 2020 defines them as “differences that occur by gender, race or ethnicity, education or income, disability, geographic location, or sexual orientation” (Adler, 2008). Health disparities are not determined by solely biological differences, but rather more attributed to the environment surrounding a person. The public health industry is so concerned about racial health disparities that stem from the social environment

Evidence show that people from lower class backgrounds and ethnic minority’s backgrounds are more likely to suffer more health problems to the majority ethnic group this shows a pattern of inequality.

The vision of The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) to help provide the American people have a healthy life equally. By increasing awareness throughout the nation on the prevalence rates and impact of health disparities on individuals and communities The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) helps reduce and encourage elimination of health disparities. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) has a direction on developing and conducting research, publication of findings, train and public education to better minority health and minimize health disparities. In achieving those goals The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) must enhance its research and create a culturally knowledgeable workforce, develop researches on factors that influence health disparities and must reach out to communities to provide any new information that was identified in the recent researches and lastly educate the public.

Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health will require enhanced efforts at preventing disease, promoting health and delivering appropriate care. This will necessitate improved collection and use of standardized data to correctly identify all high risk populations and monitor the effectiveness of health interventions targeting these groups.

Health inequalities are preventable and unjust differences in health status experienced by certain population groups. People in lower socio-economic groups are more likely to experience health inequalities than people in higher socio-economic classes. Health inequalities are not only found between people of different