An image from the United States Department of Health and Human Services
History has
shown that health equity is not guaranteed to every citizen in the United
States. According to the CDC, Health equity is the state in which everyone has a fair and
just to attain their highest level of health. The health system in the United
States should not discriminate against people based on one's race or color.
Even though health equity is a constitutional right in the United States,
minority groups in the United States do not get the same fairness as others.
Well, everyone knows who are considered minority groups: Latinos, immigrants,
and black people. We all know that health equity is a right, but the health system is failing the minority communities in the United States every day,
we can see news about racism in the United States, but people still believe
that minority groups are just exaggerating.
Alexander N. Ortega and Dylan H. Roby,
two professors from the Department of Health at different universities
published an article and provided diverse reports that health
organizations have made. The
Heckler Report, also known
as the Report of the Secretary's Task Force on Black and Minority Health, was
published in 1985 by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of
Minority Health. This research conducted a thorough analysis of racial and
minority health and provided suggestions for a national agenda to improve
minority health. The
Institute of Medicine's Unequal Treatment report from 2003 found inequities in health
and medical care and offered suggestions for action in the form of practice
changes and new areas for investigation. The
National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) was established as an institute of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2010 because of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA)
passage, with the mission of eradicating inequities in health. Regardless, of all the efforts that have
been made by these organizations to create an equal health care system and all
the calls that have been made to the health care workers to act, the system
still fails minorities.
Although everyone has been affected by the
racial inequalities in the health care system, black communities in the United
States during COVID were one of the most affected. In an article by New York Amsterdam News, is mentioned that rates
in the city are at their lowest compared to the areas in Central Brooklyn and
Southeast Queens, which remains over 3% positive. Even though there were enough
vaccines for everyone that lived in New York and was 16 and over, the vaccines
were not reaching out to these black communities. "Yet, the vaccination rates across the city reflect stark racial and
socioeconomic disparities," said, Allie Bohm of the NYCLU. According to the non-profit organization
called the Kaiser Family Foundation, racial
and ethnic inequities in health and healthcare have been made more visible and
severe by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite all the racist inequalities for minority
groups in the United States, some health organizations in the United States are
providing sources for people of color who are often less likely to have private
health insurance. Due to their higher probability of having low incomes,
people of color may have more difficulty affording private coverage. Medicaid
and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which are the main sources of coverage for some
children of color, contribute to addressing these gaps in private coverage for
racial minorities. While minority groups in the United States
are being provided with main sources of coverage for their health, the health
practitioners are not providing them the proper care and support. In a
peer-reviewed article from the Journal
of Transcultural Nursing,
two nurses explored the experiences of Mongolian immigrant women seeking
perinatal care in the United States. The study was composed of interviewing 12
Mongolian immigrant women who were over the age of 20. According to their interviews, many women feel unsupported by the nurses, some
were concerned about the birth of the plan, and some had a lack of
communication and lack of consideration from racial variations. Many of the
doctors knew that these women were not born here, however, they did not take the
time to address their concerns and none of them tried to consult about the
traditions of these women.
Many health practitioners would think that it
is not important to address and take the time to take into consideration the
racial traditions of these minority groups, but these women already are in lack pf equal health opportunities.
Based on all this information, it is clear. that racism
and unequal opportunities for minority groups are still in the United States.
While many will say that health organizations are trying to address these
issues and give equal opportunities to people of color and immigrants; the
system is still failing many immigrants and people of color because of racist
beliefs.
Although racism will always exist in the United States,
we can prevent unequal opportunities towards minority groups and have a better
system where everyone is treated equally and have the same health
opportunities.
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