Post Traumatic Stress

In order to analyze this project objectively, research will be presented from various academic sources. The institute of medicine (IOM) has done extensive research, at the request of the United States Congress, on the various disparities within healthcare. Their analysis looks at differences in treatment, patient perception, and how individuals of different races and genders act while receiving care. Furthermore, I have out in an inquiry to St. Lukes Hospital, a member of the greater Lehigh Valley Heath Network, to see what type of data they may have on the disparities in healthcare amongst women of different races. The Lehigh Valley serves as a diverse data pool to extract meaningful information from. The demographic make-up of Bethlehem is varied, yet African Americans only account for roughly 6 percent of the population (Suburbanstats.org). The small size of the African American populations will need to be taken into account, but the information should still allow for valid data.

With the increasing immigrant population a third barrier affecting access to health care is a cultural barrier. Culture barriers can include values and beliefs, language and race and ethnicity. Health beliefs and behavior can become a barrier when patients decide not to seek medical treatment and instead turn to home remedies and healers when treating illnesses. Approximately 10% of Americans speak a language other than English and can be classified ad being limited in their proficiency. For these patients language becomes a barrier and they are less likely to receive optimal medical treatment (Flores, 2006). Horton and Johnson (2010) stress the importance of communication in reducing disparities and increasing the trust of patients in the health care system. As reported by the American College of Physicians, evidence reveals that racial and ethnic minorities are more likely to receive inferior care when compared with non-minorities. This occurs even when minorities have access to insurance and adequate income (Racial and ethnic disparities in health care, 2010).

In doing so, he pays particularly close attention to black patients and their relations with health care policies and practices. Smedly maintains that blacks are not only the victims of, inpatient and outpatient treatment, racial policies, and other services but also the victims of its consequences. He argues that many health care administrators are agents to a system of inequality that support provider and administrator biases, geographical inequalities, and racial stereotypes (Smedly 2012).

In 1964 Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in which Title VI specifically forbade the distribution of federal funds to organizations that practiced discrimination. Enforcement of Title VI was a major priority within the Johnson administration as they implemented the Medicare program (Reynolds, 1997). Despite a mandate of equal treatment, significant patterns of segregated health care utilization have remained to the present. In an analysis of Medicare beneficiaries, Bach and colleagues found that their was a small proportion of physicians – 22% - who provided the majority of visits - 80% - by black patients (Bach, Pham, Schrag, Tate, & Hargraves, 2004). This may represent a pattern of racial concordance, patients choosing providers of their own race, but the physicians seeing the majority of black patients did not the same resources available as those seeing the majority of white patients. Compared with physicians seeing the mostly white patients, physicians seeing mostly black patients were 33% less likely to report always having access to high quality specialists, and 40% less likely to report always having access to high quality diagnostic imaging. In short, black patients are using a different health system than white patients on average and the health system black patients are using has fewer resources (Bach, et al., 2004).

Cultural mistrust of white mental health clinicians among African Americans with severe mental illness was conducted to determine the effects of cultural mistrust when African American patients with their white clinicians. The hypothesis tested was African American patients would have more of a negative feeling towards white clinicians that are providing care for them. According to this study they examined 154 African Americans that had been recently admitted into a psychiatric

Providers possess a multiplicity of roles in today’s society. It is typical that patients trust their physicians and should feel comfortable seeing them; however, not all communities can feel this way about their providers. Iatrophobia is prominent within the African-American community, and a history of medical abuses against this community may have a link to such present-day health inequalities as shorter life spans and higher infant mortality rates than Whites.

Racial classification has a possibility to expose an individual to racism and health disparities by influencing access to care, scope and quality of care, and overall health outcomes. In the United States of America, the secret codes of socioeconomic status are deeply spotted by race, causing the racial differences in socioeconomic status and becomes the main element to racial differences in health and health care (Kennedy, 2013). Many studies have indicated that African-Americans distrust medical practices and medical professionals due to a long history tied to the unethical treatment

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a well known disorder that takes over the life of it’s victim. We know that anyone has the chance of facing this challenging disorder but does race/ culture have anything to do with it? Throughout this paper we will be trying to answer this question and many more. This paper’s main focus is on what post-traumatic stress disorder is, what evidence provided by researchers leads us to believe that race and ethnicity has something to do with PTSD rates and last but not least the few ways on how to treat PTSD patients properly.

Depression is a major issue in the United States, yet some people still have to suffer. They suffer because the issue of depression is not taken serious and they have no help or support to get through their hard times. People of color are usually the ones to suffer. Mental health is stigmatized in the black community. Depression can impact all kinds of people that come from different paths of life, but it is expressed and addressed differently in the black community. According to the Center for Disease Control, in 2011, 7.6% of African-Americans sought treatment for depression compared to 13.6% of the general population (Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity: A Supplement to Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General 2011). Why

Like previously stated, there has been a vast history of racial issues particularly in the medical field. These issues have led to minorities, especially African Americans, to not trust medical professionals and procedures. A study found in the Archives of Internal Medicine gives shocking results by stating that “African Americans were far less trusting than whites of the medical establishment and medical researchers in particular. African Americans were 79.2 percent more likely to believe that someone like them would be used as a guinea pig without his or her consent” (Clark 118). There are many cases in the past which would make a minority feel neglected and like a “guinea pig”. For instance, Henrietta Lacks, the main character of Rebecca Skloot’s book, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. Her doctors were shocked at the terrifying rate her tumor was growing (Skloot 117). Her cells were taken from her cervix and they were distributed world wide without her or her family’s consent. The distribution went on for years even after her death

In recent discussions of health care disparities, a controversial issue has been whether racism is the cause of health care disparities or not. On one hand, some argue that racism is a serious problem in the health care system. From this perspective, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) states that there is a big gap between the health care quality received by minorities, and the quality of health care received by non-minorities, and the reason is due to racism. On the other hand, however, others argue that health care disparities are not due to racism. In the words of Sally Satel, one of this view’s main proponents, “White and black patients, on average don’t even visit the same population of

Intergenerational trauma, or historical trauma, is “the cumulative psychological damage that specific groups of people suffer throughout multiple generations” (Hanser & Gomila, 2015). African Americans, as well as Native Americans, are one of the groups said to suffer from the most historical trauma in the United States, most of it stemming from centuries of slavery and subjugation. This paper seeks to show how slavery has continued to affect black people in the United States, starting with slavery and ending with the present. This paper will look at issues that seem to plague the black community in particular, including higher rates of both incarceration and poverty, as well as continued stereotypical and racial profiling, in an attempt

The issues of gun violence and crimes has been a major concern in the life of every American citizen. While these issues affect everyone, however black people especially black men and youths are more likely to be victims.With each passing day, the chances of living a normal life without fear of being killed or injured is becoming very difficult and impossible for black people in America. Gun violence and crimes seems to have become a public health crisis and epidermis that won't easily go away unless effective action are taken. Most black people are beginning to learn how to adjust to this new norms. The major concern of most black families at this point is the safety of

In a study conducted by the Minnesota Department of Health (2003), researchers addressed mental health disparities between communities of color and the White community in several areas of health and well-being. Results indicated that although the amount of Asian Americans and African Americans students living in Greater Minnesota is relatively small, they reported much higher levels of several key risk behaviors than do their counterpart. More specifically, African Americans tend to score twice as worse as their White counterparts in most areas (sexual activity, fighting, emotional distress, smoking, drinking, family ties, activities, and etc.).

The clinical researcher needs to include a return to patient-centeredness. Even though patient centered care is widely understood to be a key component for enhanced health care, the term is interpreted a number of different ways in medical literature. The definitions of patient-centeredness range from patient satisfaction about interactions with health care providers, to the role of patient/physician attitudes, to how health care systems might affect patient-centered care. Patient-centeredness is often explained in terms of patient satisfaction or the perceived social distance between the patient and the health care practitioner. For example, the researcher in 2003 found that race-concordant visits with their physician were longer in duration and perceived by the patient to be more positive and patient-centered. They viewed concordance in patient–physician relationships as perceived similarities of the patient with their physician on two dimensions: (a) personal beliefs and values; and (b) ethnicity (in race and community). Perceived similarities enhanced levels of trust, satisfaction, and intention to adhere to treatment protocol, whereas other factors such