When healthcare indicators in the United States are evaluated according to ethnicity, certain inequalities emerge. In certain indicators such as life expectancy and incidence rate of diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, minority groups including African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans, tend to have worse outcomes than Caucasians. For instance, according to the CDC, a comparison of health indicators between African-Americans and Caucasians reveals that African-Americans have shorter life expectancies, at 75 years, than Caucasians, at 78 years (CDC, 2015). Many of these statistics are believed to correlate with socioeconomic factors; thus, healthcare inequalities affecting minority groups are influenced by economic disparities.
When compared with Caucasians, minority groups including African-Americans, Native Americans and Hispanics have higher mortality rates resulting from heart disease and stroke. African-Americans and Native Americans also have higher incidence rates of Type 2 diabetes and hypertension, often comorbid with obesity. In these specific instances, socioeconomic and cultural factors may be contributing to these statistics, as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes are both considered to be influenced by nutritional intake. When economic indicators of these minority groups are examined, both African-Americans and Native-Americans have higher rates of poverty than other groups. Unfortunately, healthy food often tends to be more expensive than unhealthier options; heavily processed foods from corner markets and fast food restaurants are often prominent in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods. Native-American groups also have higher rates of alcoholism, which is also a contributing factor to high rates of heart disease. factors may play a role outside of genetics, as these conditions are influenced by food intake. If unhealthy foods become a regular part of one’s diet, health issues such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes are more likely to result (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010).
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"Healthcare Inequalities Affecting Minorities in America".
There are other factors besides nutrition that may be responsible for inherent disparities between ethnic groups in regard to health care. For instance, African-Americans, Native-Americans and Hispanics tend to have a lower high school completion rate than Caucasians and Asian. As a result, there may be fewer available jobs that provide health insurance. A lack of basic healthcare coverage might also contribute to conditions that influence life expectancy rates. They are less likely to seek care due to its cost, and many diseases may be left untreated (Miller et al., 2009). There might also be less access to vaccines; according to the CDC Health Disparities & Inequalities Report (2013), African-Americans and Hispanics were less likely to be vaccinated against influenza.
Unfortunately, socioeconomic disparities affecting health equality tend to be generational: many African-American, Hispanic and Native-Americans are disadvantaged from birth (Cook, 2015). Children from these minority groups are more likely to be born into households with low socioeconomic income levels than children from other groups. Additionally, children from these minority groups are also born to mothers who on average tend to be less educated. Both Hispanics and African-Americans have higher teenage pregnancy rates. As a result, there is less access to prenatal care. Statistics provided by the CDC (2013) reveal quantifiable consequences of these disparities: 14% of African-American babies and 11% of Hispanic babies born in the United States are underweight at birth when compared to the national average rate of 6%; these babies are more likely to be born to single mothers by a ratio of 2:1; and infant mortality rates among these groups are also higher than other groups (CDC, 2013).
There is no single answer why many minority groups, including African-Americans, Native-Americans and Hispanics rank below national averages in multiple healthcare indicator categories, but the evidence reveals that both cultural and socio-economic factors clearly influence health outcomes. For instance, Cook (2015) reveals that Hispanic women, on average, use birth control less often than other ethnic groups. This tendency could be the result of cultural or socioeconomic factors, or it could be a combination of both: for some, choosing not to use contraception might be a choice that is either culturally or religiously influenced, while for others, it may not be affordable. There could also be a lack of sex education in schools with high populations of Hispanic students. Nevertheless, the result of higher teenage pregnancy rates is an increase in unplanned pregnancies and single-parent homes, along with an increased prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases when birth control is not used. baby — this is a purely cultural trait.
Because of the high variance in healthcare indicators between ethnic groups, there is clearly a relation between cultural and socioeconomic disparities, and disparities in health care access. For some groups, healthcare is cost-prohibitive, which creates an economic barrier. For others, accessing health care materials and services in one’s native language may also create a barrier to health care. In other instances, a lack of trust or awareness may influence accessibility to health care (Halfon, 2009). In each case, the primary factor that should be considered in regard to health care is the amount of accessibility people have. The more barriers that exist, the less likely one will be able to access health care, which ultimately results in statistics that have been quantified by the CDC showing lower health outcomes among minority groups. Health education in schools is one way to begin reversing this trend, but unfortunately the current data reveals more systemic issues regarding ethnicity and health care have resulted in these disparities.
- CDC. (2013). Health Disparities and Inequalities Report. Center for Disease Control. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/populations/remp.html
- CDC. (2015). Racial and Ethnic Minority Populations. Minority Health. Retrieved from: http:// www.cdc.gov/ minorityhealth/index.html
- Cook, L. (2015). Why black Americans die younger. U.S. News and World Report. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/01/05/black-americans-have-fewer-years-to-live-heres-why
- Halfon, N. (2009, February). Life course health development: A new approach for addressing
upstream determinants of health and spending. Expert Voices. Retrieved from http://
www.nihcm.org - Miller, G., Chen, E., & Cole, S. W. (2009). Health psychology: Developing biologically plausible models linking the social world and physical health. Annual Review of Psychology, 60,
501-524. - Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2010). The spirit level: Why greater equality makes societies stronger. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.
