Essay Example on Exploring Appalachia: A Region of Contrasts and Disadvantage

Introduction

The Appalachian region is part of the Eastern United States that provides a home to over twenty-five million people. Mountains cover the region, and it includes Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New York, among other states. The area is also nearly isolated with a rugged topography that is occupied by people who possess a distinct culture. The Appalachians are among the disadvantaged group of people when it comes to the distribution of resources in the United States (Lefevers, 2019). For instance, they are isolated because of the transport and infrastructure deficiencies that they have developed for quite a long time, as such hindering the distribution of other essential resources in the community.

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According to research, Appalachia has a long history that is associated with poverty and living of people that is subsistence, which in turn has permeated the social structure and the culture of the community, including their education. The Appalachian community is vast, with unequal distribution of resources throughout the region. The above has resulted in widespread poverty being experienced among the people, with more than eighty percent of the people suffering from poverty. The area is dominated by poor infrastructure, inadequate health care services, and a high rate of unemployment, together with other harsh conditions.

Among the most prevalent issues facing the community is the distribution and availability of health care resources within the area. Lack of access to health care has been cited as the primary reason for the experienced health disparities, particularly in the weak, rural areas of Appalachia in the United States. The limitations to health care access among the community people have significantly impacted the access to adequate resources, which in turn has resulted in health disparities, inequities among the residents, and inequality.

Distribution of Health Intervention Programs

The health care system of the community is marked by inadequate availability and distribution of health care facilities, equipment, and professionals. Frequently, there has been disbursement of substandard health care connections, particularly involving diagnoses in later stages because of late interventions. For instance, there should be a timely intervention in the diagnosis of infants. It would enhance the performance of hearing tests that are supposed to be allocated a sufficient amount of time in the identifications of the loss of hearing in the early stages of the infants (Lefevers, 2019).

However, due to the lack of health resources in the community, the intervention programs, diagnosis, and tests of the infant hearing loss are insufficient and slow at the same time. Therefore, the social environment of Appalachia possessing insufficient and increased limitation to health care resource access and intervention leads to the Appalachian people to advocate and utilize complementary and alternative forms of medicine and treatment mechanisms. The lack of health care resources in the region has also enacted barriers to the Appalachian people's beliefs in health, especially concerning the health care insurance coverage and health financial resources.

Financial Resources

Issues related to the health care system of the region can be attributed to the material circumstances that mainly involve financial allocation that is in link with the purchase of the health care equipment, employment of the health care professionals, and the building of the health care facilities. The distribution of finances allocated to the health sector continues to prevail in these rural areas that are accompanied by poor leadership.

Since the Appalachian community is immensely affected by factors like low personal income, low real wages, low salaries for given jobs, and small market incomes, financial barriers for the poor health care insurance distribution in the community are a common issue (Stensland et al., 2002). Because of the lack of adequate health care resources, health care costs have been reported to be a primary barrier among the people of Appalachia, especially those that do not have a health insurance cover in comparison to another part of the United States.

Distribution of Health Professionals

There are a lot of rural barriers that the Appalachian people have to overcome concerning accessing health care resources in the region. For instance, studies show that in rural areas, a single primary care physician was taking care of over two thousand patients. In contrast, in the urban areas of Appalachia, an individual physician takes care of approximately one thousand five hundred patients.

As much as the numbers have been confirmed to significantly reduce over time due to the increase of physicians in the area, there is a concern with the comparison of the number of physicians in the rural areas and the urban areas since the gap is significant about the number of available patients in both regions (Wilson et al., 2012). Women in the region are at a higher risk of experiencing barriers in the course of obtaining health care services because there are insufficient specialized professionals for treating women and general physicians.

Health Literacy Programs

Health literacy is among the health care issues that are experienced by people. The degree to which the Appalachian people process, obtain, and understand the necessary health information and services that are needed to make appropriate health decisions is low among the people. Health care knowledge as a resource among the Appalachian people has denied the majority the chance to navigate the health care system placing these groups under the risk of succumbing to some of the health conditions. Women are also perceived to be illiterate due to lack of sufficient education and knowledge concerning health, and even a high cost of treatment for them (Cano, 2016). Additionally, studies portray an increased pattern of heart diseases, stroke, and diabetes to lead to an increase in mortality rates.

Lack of the above health care resource implies that the Appalachian people fail to understand and appropriately address health care issues affecting them. Many of them do not follow the instructions that are given by the health care service providers, how to prevent the spread of certain diseases, take care of the chronic conditions, and prescriptions from the physicians. The local authorities have not put in place special programs that would aid in the spread of various health care education that concern the people that are being practiced in other non-Appalachian states.

Health Technology

Besides the above, there are also technological healthcare-related resources that have been confirmed to be insufficient in the Appalachian region. For instance, the internet, which is a popular tool throughout the world and other non-Appalachian states for obtaining health care information, is insufficiently supplied in the region. The above has resulted in less data being searched by the people concerning their health conditions. Due to the high poverty level among the people, there are only a few individuals that have access to modern gadgets that are internet-enabled such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops (Cano, 2016).

Distribution of Health Facilities and Equipment

According to the various researches that have been done in the region, it has been established that there are a high mortality and morbidity rate in rural Appalachia due to the disparity in the distribution of health care resources. There are no adequate facilities and equipment, warranting Appalachia to have an increased risk of people exposed to cancer incidences hence a high mortality rate. The above is opposite to other states and the rest of the United States.

Few health facilities in the region are expected to be used in offering services to the sizeable Appalachian population. Unlike Appalachian states, the non-Appalachian states have mobile clinics to cater for the high society of people or rather for the people with special health requirements and those with prevalent diseases. The mobile clinics would have been of the essence, especially in the Appalachian region courtesy of the population distribution in the area and the nature of the topography that significantly inhibits accessibility to the few available hospital facilities.

Appalachian also lacks sufficient health care equipment, particularly those taking care of particular diseases and conditions such as cancer scanning machines and those for treating special conditions. For that equipment that is available such as those for carrying out laboratory tests, they are unequally distributed throughout the region in the sense that only a few facilities have them necessitating the victims to travel from one facility to another in search of the health care equipment. Most of the facilities also have old technological machines, unlike those in other states that have digital ones. The mechanisms resulting in a lot of inefficiencies and the production of inaccurate results.

References

Cano, A. (2016). Women and Healthcare in Appalachia: Impeding Circumstance and the Role of Technology.

Lefevers, K. M. (2019). Healthcare Access and Poverty Among Central Appalachian Residents. Kentucky Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship, 3(1), 9.

Stensland, J., Mueller, C., & Sutton, J. (2002). An analysis of the financial conditions of health care institutions in the Appalachian region and their economic impacts. Project HOPE, Center for Health Affairs.

Wilson, S. L., Kratzke, C., & Hoxmeier, J. (2012). Predictors of access to healthcare: what matters to rural Appalachians?. Global journal of health science, 4(6), 23.