Disparity In Health

. Addressing health inequalities and health care is not only important from the point of view of social justice, but also to improving the health of all Americans by improving the quality of care and health of their children. People. Moreover, the difference in health is expensive. An analysis estimates that about 30% of total direct medical expenses for blacks, Hispanics and Asians are excessive costs due to inequalities in health. The difference also leads to economic losses due to indirect costs related to loss of productivity and premature mortality. (Artiga,

Growing up, my dad always told me that we were the lucky ones. At the age of 15, he escaped from Vietnam, leaving with only the clothes on his back. Saigon fell to the north, sending people in a final desperate exodus. He would say “If the mines didn’t kill me, the bullets surely would. If the bullets didn’t kill me, drowning would and if drowning didn’t kill me, dehydration would.” In spite of the possibilities faced by thousands like him, my dad made it onto the US Navy ship. While my parents had escaped the war, we faced a different conflict in acclimation. My dad struggled to keep a job. We could barely afford rent, nevertheless see a doctor. For some people, “health disparities” can be described in terms of statistics and terms like “preventative care” and “optimizing accessibility”. For my family, “health disparities” was just a part of life in America. It was the uselessness I felt as I watched my dad work 80 hours a week at several minimum wage jobs just so my brother and I could focus on school. It was the frustration I felt spending hours in vain researching ways to ease my mother’s pain as she suffered from years of untreated stomach ulcers. It was the worry I felt knowing that, despite ranking among the top 10% of students in my high school class, I still could not afford to go to college. In spite of everything, I am one of the lucky ones as I was able to fully fund my college education in scholarships and grants. I am lucky because these experiences taught me

Medical advance and improved technology providing all Americans more healthier and long lives more than ever before .In contrast racial and ethnic minorities experience significant number of health disparities .The major factors of these minority group health disparities are income, education, and work status, as well as poor housing,

Governmental agencies influence health policies by influencing the Federal government, State government, and local laws by using population health research studies and interventions studies reported of health disparities. In addition to being well informed with health disparities they have access to investing, research and collecting evidence in assisting them to gather information that can influence health care polices. With each research that is conducted can possibly create new or old policies to be improved and aimed to reduce health disparities.

The disparities in healthcare amongst minorities, elderly, and the poor are mind blowing, but in order to help reduce disparities, there needs to be an awareness and accurate data available to assess and implement a plan to bring better quality healthcare to communities.

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 limited community- based resources that provide preventive services, primary care access and the continuum care for patients with chronic conditions. 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 healthcare are among the lines of access to care, treatment, preventive measures, and medicine. Several research projects were used to examine how ones 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 planned to improve health disparities by increasing access to care for minorities. In addition to improving access to care the ACA

Mitchell (2015) discovered that, compared to white Americans, those who are uninsured or underinsured tend to lack regular sources and access to care and receive poor quality of care. About 50% of these individuals are “in lower socioeconomic brackets [with] limited education in historically underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, who have . . . experienced oppression, discrimination, and social and economic inequalities. [Consequently,] they experience higher rates of disease,

Health disparities are considered to be differences dealing with health care, which is closely linked with society economic and/or environmental disadvantages. The disadvantage could be caused by race, gender, age or socioeconomic status. Health disparities can be affect certain people in different ways which will cause greater obstacles based on their race or ethics group or religion.

The article, Tackling the Root Causes of Health Disparities Through Community Capacity Building, written by Anthony Iton, explains the relationship between an individuals income and their overall health. Because of the underlying fact that wealthier individuals lead an all over healthier life, those whom fall under the poverty line are at severe health disadvantages.

Disparity in health care is found to be both bad and deadly. Disparity and discrimination in American health care has been going on for many years. This disparity is caused by race, culture, sex, and mental ability. Many disabled individuals also face difficulties as well. Discrimination in American health care results in poor health and death.

I am a student researching health disparities and inequalities, specifically suicides. Reading through a report on suicide information gathered from 2005 through 2009, I noticed many interesting issues. After analyzing the textual facts along with the tables and graphs, I learned that the age group 45 through 54 had the highest rates of suicide. This bit of information was a shocking to me. In the news, we more commonly hear of teenagers and young adults taking their lives. I assume this is because the impact is felt more through perhaps the school the teen attended. In these public schools we have seen a rise in suicide awareness and prevention in recent years. However,

Health disparity(ies) are defined as a significant disparity in overall rate of disease incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality or survival rates in the population as compared to the health status of the general population (Minority Health & Health Disparities Research and Education Act, 2000). Let’s take the public health and epidemiological terminology into a simplified form. A health disparity or health disparities exist when one group is compared to the general population: gets the disease more often, is diagnosed with a later stage of that disease, there are more severe cases of that disease, receives poorer care for that disease, suffers more because has poorer quality of life due to that disease, is likely to survive that disease and/or dies from that disease in greater numbers. Now let us simplify the phrase “one group is compared to the general population.” The words – “general population” refers to the population of White, while the word “group” refers to the population of Non-White (the population of color, race and ethnicity – Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans / Pacific Islander, etc.). Public health officials known that there have been differences in health profiles of U.S. racial and/or ethnic groups for centuries. U.S. ranks 42nd (out 223 countries) overall in life expectancy – 78.7 years, our nation falls behind Canada, France and Sweden, Japan, United Kingdom (CIA, 2012). U.S. also ranks 7th out of the top

An area in health disparities that I find to be interesting is the disparities among those who are aging. I selected this particular topic due to my interest in working with the elderly population. My goals are to eventually own my own assisted living and memory care facility. Therefore, I want to make sure that I can provide the best care for my residents and make sure they stay healthy. “Aging adults experience higher risk of chronic disease. In 2012, 60% of older adults managed 2 or more chronic conditions. This is something to be aware about, especially while having my own assisted living and memory care facility to make sure that we are being aware of the symptoms to better the elderly’s health. Some chronic conditions are heart disease, stroke and cancer.

Disparities between populations can be seen all over the healthcare system. Specifically, there exists a disparity between the genders that can lead to increased mortality rates. This disparity can lead to a slower diagnosis of a woman’s illness when compared to a man, which means delayed treatment which also means unnecessary suffering (Rassin, 2009). The disparity has a consequence of women being less inclined to stick to a treatment plan because of the social stigma and expectations placed on them that do not concern men (Rassin, 2009). This disparity is then understood to make the treatments and diagnoses of females much harder than their male counterparts. Women

Social Economical status is one of the major risk factor to health and health care disparity. In the past few years the death rate in the United States has decreased but, there exists a widening gap between the death rates of blacks compared to whites (Japanese National Health, n.d.). It has been documented that people that are poor or not well educated have poorer health than rich people or well educated people. Social Economic status effects not only the individual but the entire family and community as a whole. If one is living in poverty they may not have the money to seek out appropriate medical care and they may rely on home remedies due to affordability. They may also wait until their condition has reached an emergency level and seek out care in the emergency