The racial gap in health is spread across all domains of health
Introduction
Health is a major concern of almost all individuals as the latter will determine certain success of quality life being lived by the people and that race and ethnicity when it comes to providing healthcare services does really matter and presses an issue engaging into gaps in health from across domains. The statement is being supported by proponents Hawyard et al. (2000, p. 910 in, Lyons and Chamberlain 2006, p. 38), as indicated that, “racial gap in health is spread across all domains of health, and socioeconomic conditions, not health risks behaviors, are the primary origins of the racial stratification of health”, this implies to the assumption that stratified healthcare comes with gap or health related disparities such as for instance, race and ethnicity issues pointing towards Latino Americans, the Hispanics from within the presence of healthcare system that can be full of patient care and safety controversies that can partake without justice due diverse race and ethnicity backgrounds.
This essay will be particular on race and ethnicity from health context, discussing and analyzing why the process is important into the healthcare systems and the recognizing of socio-economic conditions, ways that affects stratified pattern of health and its nature and to explain why health disparities are not merely about health risk behaviors but also on racial gap in the health care process as well as its positive stature. Then, the need to create effective conclusion, the possible learning about racial gap in health as well as several related aspects and the need to provide useful recommendation on how to be aware and at the same time avoid or terminate points of racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare assessing if the particular gaps is being directly associated to disparities and not of health risks behavior of the people involved in the process.
Discussion/Analysis
Ideally, race and ethnicity relating to health and its systems are being used as variables into researches pertaining to general domain of the healthcare and that, the truth of the matter can be descriptive and might not use in developing approaches upon health improvement pathways, and the fact that race and ethnicity does reflect weak and or poor healthcare status of the ones affected by the problem. The stature and the conceptsof ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’, have been considered and do have poor consistency into health system and terms the two bring about and the validity of ‘race’and ‘ethnicity’ into the healthcare ways plays an important function into the presence of racial gaps and that the channel of communication is of strong barrier and may be one point that assume the gap is not based on health risks behavior but could be because of the disparities and differences into delivery of proper healthcare services and other factors involved. There can be tendencies of gathering ample ethnic knowledge and the including of racial points, the critical health approach for example, those issues found in UK health contexts and that other nation may help in transforming racial gaps into a productive as well as well motivated healthcare system and policies. It can be that, “multi-cultural ethnic health explanations intends for displacing more materially driven perceptions and beliefs of any healthcare outcomes, and that service dedication towards patients regardless of race and ethnic position is truly essential and needed before any unresolved issues will arose that can be in close pattern of racial and ethnic problems from within behaviors that risky to health are probably unrecognized and forgotten for effective healthcare valuation and truth” (Sheldon and Parker, 1992 pp. 104-110). Thus, health access to care can shape public opinion about whether a problem exists and influence the actions of health guidelines proponents in addressing the racial gap as one major issue. There can be that, the exploration path can assume disparities on a high rank if there conforms to vast health team perception of such link amongst race, ethnicity situations and the certain notion as to whether such views of health and gap do differ depending on patients’ racial and ethnic set up, from a national survey resource upon recognizing public awareness of racial/ethnic differences in health and how race affect the health care system into Hispanics or Latinos indications.
Furthermore, such survey, being conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation, Harvard University’s School of Public Health and The Lillie-Blanton et al., Public Perceptions 219 Washington Post (1995; 1996), have asserted that, “racial differ in the perception of socio-economic realities facing African Americans and Latinos in healthcare area with a focus on health and health care issues. The view in which racial gap affects health system have established broad health context into assessing of racism from within sectors of health care society as a whole. For example, “on average, 19 percent of the public, as 16 percent of whites, 35 percent of African Americans, and 30 percent of Latinos have said racial gap/ racism is really an existing huge issue in health care compared to the average of 31 to 35 percent that say racism is a major problem in other sectors as the Whites and African Americans differ considerably in their views on the extent to which racial or ethnic background influences how one is treated by the health system, the views of Latinos on whether race affects one’s treatment in the health system are somewhat in between those of African Americans and whites, the health system very or somewhat often treats people unfairly based on their race or ethnicity.
Moreover, it is important for health systems to collect and report on health towards race/ethnicity as health inequality may drive people and health policy makers’ have full attention into the racial gap issue and not have focus on risks behaviors, as the ongoing identification of race disparity may be related to the lack of health care awareness and it may be shaped by perception of several Americans for example that race or ethnicity shows alarming threat into the system of health as race affect patients’ health care from basis of health knowledge and not merely opinion based and of course, the receptivity to effective initiatives or health education campaigns upon reduction into such disparities as for complete care.
Meanwhile, proponent Kreps (2006), have reported that, “there are striking inequities in health outcomes between racialand ethnic groups in US as many groups experiencing significantly poor health outcomes than members of the racial majority, non-Hispanic patients, thesedisturbing health disparities exist even when controlling fordifferences in income and health insurance. Racial disparitiesin health outcomes are related to communication problems withinthe health care system leading to the unequal access to healthinformation and inadequate participation in health care decisionmaking”. Furthermore, as due to worldwide migration, globalization and EU enlargement, European communities are becoming diverse as well in lieu to health status of migrants and ethnic minority groups as being vulnerable, due to their lower socio-economic position, and sometimes because of traumatic migration experiences and lack of adequate social support. Thus, it seems only rational those human rights activists argue that access to health care services must be seen as a basic right for everyone. Race and ethnicity are strongly associated with socioeconomic status and with related factors such as education and poverty status as race and ethnicity are so strongly correlated with socioeconomic status, rather than genetic and cultural aspects of race and ethnicity. Despite limits, only when health needs of every races and ethnicities are considered can people and healthcare team develop prevention and screening healthcare programs necessary in minimizing the impact of health issues in a country. Hawyard et al. (2000 in, Lyons and Chamberlain 2006, p. 38), may mean healthcare service failure is high upon which points of discrimination might exists and stating and believing that, racial differences in health are not because of health risk behaviors due to issues involved for example, between the care providers and patients due to presence of strong disparity into the health services and systems manifested along the way. Henceforth, ratherthan simply stating that blacks and whites should receive equalcare once admitted, significant problems of health deliverymay exist at the hospitals to which patients are admitted andwithin the continuity of care between physician and hospital. Bradley and colleagues (2004), indicated that, “patients’ racial/ethnicgroups were abstracted from the medical records using the following categories, white, African American/black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska native and other or unknown race/ethnicity” respectively.
In addition, there has been “culturally competent health care and health promotion higher on the European health policy agenda and to support other hospitals by compiling practical knowledge and instruments” and then, one “strategy to test feasibility of becoming a migrant-friendly and culturally competent organization was implementation and evaluation of three selected Subprojects in the diverse reality of European hospitals, with the local implementation financed out of hospital funds, but supported in a European benchmark ways” (Migrant Friendly Hospitals’ Project, 2005). Amiably, there can be socioeconomic ways and conditions being related to racial or ethnic stratification of health emphasizing that certain socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in health care qualityhave been extensively documented. Recently, eliminationof disparities in health care has become the focus of a nationalinitiative. Yet, there is little effort to monitor and addressdisparities in health care through organizational quality improvement along with modifications in quality performancemeasure, disparities represent significant quality problem in order to identify andaddress disparities; clinical performance measures should bestratified by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic position forpublic reporting; population-wide monitoring should incorporateadjustment for race/ethnicity and socioeconomic position; andstrategies to adjust payment for race/ethnicity and socioeconomicposition should be considered to reflect the known effects ofboth on morbidity (Fiscella, Franks, Gold and Clancy, 2000).
Conclusion
For the conclusion, such health oriented individuals should allocate race toensure that the designation most closely matches what they believereflects their personal and cultural background (Mays, Ponce, Washington and Cochran, 2003). Aside, if such open ended optionsallow for more individually accurate description, but categorizationfor a study might be a challenge; authors should endeavor tomake the process of coding transparent. Therefore, the analysis by race and ethnicity has become some reflex, accompanying every table that examines demographicdifferences, such as age and sex.” While it may be appropriateto analyze race and ethnicity, the fact that race was assessedis not sufficient reason to analyze outcomes by racial categories, the need to assume and recognize relevance of racial gap in healthcare, based on certain studies and literature,having in critical evaluation of race and ethnicity as constructswithin the success of healthcare service and delivery stature.
However, if race is being usedas proxy measure, researchers shouldattempt to measure as many variables as possible directly, suchas socioeconomic status as well as education and in doing so, researcher beginto sort out whether an outcome is truly related to race and or to some factors with closer relationshipfrom within causal healthcare pathway.Determining racial gaps in health plays an important initial step in assessingquality of care delivery and outcomes, such as those illustrated by Bradleyand colleagues (2004), by means of reporting race and ethnicity transparently and beginningto explore other important and related characteristics, biomedicalresearch can move beyond race as a social construct in itselfand explore other tangible components that can be affected toimprove the public’s health.
Recommendations
For the recommendation, such as related to the experience into MFH project partners, there is the need to integrate crucial points for successful development of services and organizational cultures in order to avoid race gaps into the healthcare context. Thus, accepting that creating such migrant-friendly hospital plays a value on investment in patient care and services deemed useful for the family of the patient without any health disparities in motion (The Amsterdam Declaration in, Bischoff 2003). Then, the increased awareness will be needed and to find out points towards health disparities such as those that are gender motivated as leading to change in communication as well as allocation of proper healthcare system resource and development. Also, the developing of partnerships with organizations and advocacy groups who are knowledgeable about migrant and minority ethnic group issues is an important step that can facilitate the development of a more culturally and linguistically appropriate service delivery system. The challenge for those who seek remedies is to improve awareness of problematic racial differences in health and health care access and to encourage initiatives to reduce these differences. Several Whites need to be more aware of the real-life circumstances and situations that face members of racial and ethnic minority groups in this country when they seek treatment. In addition, some members of racial and ethnic minority groups need to be more aware of disparities so that they can be more proactive in obtaining needed care. The drive to reduce racial and ethnic differentials will require both a better understanding of the factors that contribute to poorer health and health care access and systematic efforts to address positive health and its wellbeing cycles.
References
Fiscella, K., Franks, P., Gold, M. and Clancy, C. (2000), Inequality in Quality: Addressing Socioeconomic, Racial, and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. JAMA. 2000;283:2579-2584.
Kaiser Family Foundation/The Washington Post/Harvard University Survey Project. (1995-96), The Four Americas: Government and Social Policy through the Eyes of America’s Multi-racial and Multi-ethnic Society (No. 1105).
Kreps, G. (2006), Communication and Racial Inequities in Health Care. American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 49, No. 6, 760-774 George Mason University
Lyons, A., & Chamberlain, K. (2006). Health Psychology: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge University Press pp. 1-462 in, Hawyard et al. (2000)
Migrant-Friendly Hospitals Project (2005), migrant-friendly hospitals, Project Summary. March 2005
Available from: http://www.mfh-eu.net/public/files/mfh-summary.pdf
Sheldon, T. and Parker, H. (1992), Race and ethnicity in health research. Journal of Public Health.1992; 14: 104-110
The Amsterdam Declaration: Towards Migrant-Friendly Hospitals in an ethno-culturally diverse Europe in, Bischoff, A. (2003), Caring for migrant and minority patients in European hospitals A review of effective interventions, 2003, Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies A study commissioned by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for the Sociology of Health and Medicine, Vienna, ‘MFH – Migrant Friendly Hospitals”. WHO.
Available from: http://www.mfheu.net/public/files/european_recommendations/mfh_amsterdam_declaration_english.pdf
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment