Becoming Aware of Our RIGHTS: Minority Health Opportunities and Equity

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.

An image from New York Amsterdam News

    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.