A Brief Note On Race Based Health Disparities

Barriers in health care can lead to disparities in meeting health needs and receiving appropriate care, including preventive services and the prevention of unnecessary hospitalizations (HealthyPeople.gov, 2012). In their 2008 annual report, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality lists several disparities’ in health care. They report that racial and ethnic minorities in the United States

The United States is a melting pot of cultural diversity. For a country that was founded by individuals fleeing persecution, it has taken us many years to grant African-Americans equal rights, and even longer for those rights to be recognized. Despite all the effort to eliminate inequality in this country, health disparity among this minority group remains a significant issue. Research in this area has pointed to several key reasons for this gap that center on differences in culture, socioeconomics, and lack of health literacy.

Although the United States is a leader in healthcare innovation and spends more money on health care than any other industrialized nation, not all people in the United State benefit equally from this progress as a health care disparity exists between racial and ethnic minorities and white Americans. Health care disparity is defined as “a particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social or economic disadvantage…adversely affecting groups of people who have systematically experienced greater social and/or economic obstacles to health and/or clean environment based on their racial or ethnic group; religion; socioeconomic status; gender; age; mental health; cognitive, sensory or physical disability; sexual orientation or gender identity; geographic location; or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion” (National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities [NPAEHD], 2011, p. 3). Overwhelming evidence shows that racial and ethnic minorities receive inferior quality health care compared to white Americans, and multiple factors contribute to these disparities, including geography, lack of access to adequate health coverage, communication difficulties between patients and providers, cultural barriers, and lack of access to providers (American College of Physicians,

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).

Health care providers receive little or no training on issues of race and racism. As a result, awareness of racism and its impact on health care delivery is low. Until racial issues are honestly addressed by members of the health care team, it is unlikely that we will see significant improvements in racial health care disparities for Americans. Barriers to racial health care equity therefore includes the health care system (insurance, funding), the patient (poor health literacy, fear, mistrust), the community (awareness, advocacy), and the health care providers (bias, attitudes, expectations, stereotyping). Nelson, (2016).

Racial inequality in health are everywhere amongst various and different individuals. For example, racial inequalities can be obesity, diabetes, heart disease and many more. These there are different types and forms of racial inequalities. For instance, one of the most common diseases that hs racial inequalities in society is obesity. Some people that have different health statuses that from social influences and inequalities other causes such as biological factors, stress, environment and etc.

To obtain the necessary data to understand and eliminate health disparities, I would review a board array of data collection system from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). These systems include “health surveys, administrative enrollment and billing records and records from private data systems” (Perrin, 2004). These data collection systems are used to understand broad areas of determinant of health (e.g. the impact income have on mortality) while others are used to understand health outcomes (e.g. the effect of patient race/ethnicity on health outcomes with diabetes). I would focus only on race/ethnic, socioeconomic position, and language because I believe these to be important in understanding disparities in health and health

Racial discrimination is the ground root of disparities letting African Americans to low socioeconomic status and poor health outcomes. Why disproportionality in health is so high among African Americans in the United States? Disparities limit the continuity of improvement in overall quality of care and population health and result in poor health outcomes as well as unnecessary costs. Despite an upsurge focus on reducing disparities and increasing a set of advantages to address disparities in the federal, state, community, and provider level, there is still disproportionately high among African-Americans. It is important to pay attention, recognize the disparities and address the wide range of factors that contribute to disparities in health and health care. Racism and cultural mistrust provide reasonable contributions to the disproportionate care among African Americans, yet these variables likely reveal variations in the health care services. The connections of racial discrimination, socioeconomic status, cultural mistrust, and perceptions of racism create an intricate set of variables that could be potential to impact the health of African Americans.

Race contributes to racial differences in health identified multiple ways in which racism initiates and sustains health disparities. Stress, anxiety, and other health issues can affect a migrant person because they might feel overwhelmed to be in a new place. These are some of the basic factors, that can contribute to deteriorating health for many migrant people. These factors can be leading to use tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.  Different races do not have the proper health care, like the whites do and I believe that segregation has a big part and impact on those groups rather than whites because they live under a level of segregation that is higher than them.  As stated in Rethinking the Color Line by Charles A. Gallagher ”Studies

Within the article, “Health Disparities and Health Equity: The Issue Is Justice” I found various important points presented. First, I thought the authors placed an emphasize on operationally defining definitions. The National Institutes of Health defines health disparities as “differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of diseases and other adverse health conditions that exist among specific population groups in the US”, these differences occur by “gender, race or ethnicity, education or income, disability, living in rural localities, or sexual orientation” (Healthy People, 2010). I found these definitions

His previous work in pain management was primarily around prescription opioid abuse and how physician prescription practices can be improved as a mitigation strategy. Therefore pain disparaties and health inequality was something new for him. Apart from doing literature review on this particular, he also learnt the basic concepts and factors that are causing health disparaties in general. Following a one week of tiring and continous work, he was able to outline important determinants of health disparaties in pain management and listed the important references that were required to complete the work. Although from there on, I took the lead and finalized the article, however I heavily benefit from his intial work, writing and references. Being a non-native English speaker and a relatively entry level research it was a brilliant effort and that is why I was able to complete the article on given time and according to the given criteria set up by book authors. I am proud to be the first author of Umar's first publication as he has the potential to become a first author in coming future very soon. Having gone through a lot of residency match applications over the years and knowing very well the clinical and research profile I have no doubt in my mind that he will be a very good addition to any residency program in the

Theme one focused on women's experiences of pain postnatally, demonstrating that pain is a common ailment that women endure (Macarthur and Macarthur, 2004), impacting on the ability and ease of performing activities of daily living (Way, 2012). Furthermore, pain is often accepted and normalised by women as a result of childbirth (Herron-Marx, Williams and Hicks, 2007a). Despite the majority of women enduring pain postnatally, the evidence in this review has limited transferability to practice as women of Black and ethnic minority (BME) groups were not studied (Davern, 2008). This identifies an area requiring additional research, exploring whether women of different ethnicities have differing pain care needs. This would

Pain is subjective, caring for patients in pain can be very challenging especially those patients with a severe debilitating persistent illness. Several factors determine a patient’s tolerance and management of pain which include, age, cultural background, causative agents, and psychological issues with the patient. At several occasions through my nursing experiences have cared for several patients in pain, have come to a belief that pain can be challenging to manage in some cases when we health care workers don’t understand different kinds of ailments and the severity of pain accompanied with them. For instance, patients suffering from sciatica nerve pains respond differently from patients suffering from a headache. At one point I cared for

Assessing and treating pain is a complex puzzle. McCaffery a researcher from the UCLA Center for Health Science says the standard definition of pain is, “whatever the experiencing person says it is” (Bernhofer 1). However, a practitioner’s personal opinions about a patient’s pain might interfere with this definition when performing a pain assessment. Treatment of pain is different than working with a patient who has hypertension and requires increased dosages of medications to reduce blood pressure. Practitioners are not likely to judge a hypertensive patient’s character because of their medication needs. However, it is harder to have an unbiased opinion of a patient complaining of chronic pain who does not respond to the standard pain medications.

According to the Census Bureau, approximately 49 million Americans didn’t have coverage in 2011. The Patient Protection Affordable Care Act has only been extended to cover 32 million uninsured individuals mandates. The main issue of access to affordable care will be to exacerbated by the limited community- based resources that provide preventive services, primary care access and the continuum care for patients with chronic conditions ("Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the U.S.: 2014", 2015). There is a need to increase capacity to serve more patients while improving outcomes and reducing cost. Health disparities in the U.S. range from HIV/ Aids to obesity. The minority population typically has a disproportional burden of the HIV/ Aids epidemic ( Wetle & Scanlan 2013). Disparities in health care are among the lines of access to care, treatment, preventive measures, and medicine. Within this research project were used to examine how one 's race, neighborhood, or social classes affect their quality of care, and health outcomes ( Wetle & Scanlan , 2013). It was found that people who lived in lower-income urban areas were found to have a lower quality of care. The study also found that these people were also prescribed stronger more dangerous medicine, and also paid higher co- pays. The Affordable Care Act was created to target, and eliminate health disparities (Adepoju , Gonzales , and Preston 2015). The ACA