Essay Example on Structural Violence: Social Arrangements that Cause Harm

Introduction

Structural violence refers to social provisions that place people in tribulations way. The engagements remain structural since they get entrenched in the socio-economic and political systems of people’s lives. Besides, they describe violence since they cause harm to people, characteristically, not those accountable for propagating such inequalities (Bailey et al., 2017). Structural violence defines social arrangements, such as legal, political, cultural, economic, and religious aspects that stop people, societies, and groups from realizing their full potential.

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Large-scale social determinants, like racism and ethnicity, poverty, gender inequality, political violence, and war, and the policies that address them, usually influence healthcare (Bailey et al., 2017). There exist historically excluded groups (HEG) in our society categorized based on ethnicity and race, gender, sexual identity and orientation, disability status or special healthcare needs, geographical location (urban or rural), the culture of origin (immigrants), and age.

The purpose of this paper entails the examination of how HEG individuals get excluded from full participation in the health care system in our society. Besides, it examines how this relates to structural violence. Moreover, the paper intends to identify examples of specific health disparities that these people experience and discuss the effect of the variations upon individuals within this group.

How Structural Violence Influences the Availability of Healthcare for African-Americans in the USA

The instruments through which social factors, such as racism, employ harmful effects on black health at individual and macro stages get discussed in this paper. African-Americans remain the lowest healthy racial group in the United States of America. It is a dismal heritage of decades of social and ethnic inequality and terrible experience to equitable universal healthcare (Assari, 2018). Methodical causes of suboptimal African-American healthcare need similar organized solutions. Positive developments in African-American health signs appear to get inspired by social improvement initiatives, engagement of blacks in decision and policy-making processes, economic venture in education, and growth of access to universal healthcare (Assari, 2018).

Studies show that ethnicity remains a factor in healthcare inequality that does not qualify by sex, age, or educational level. For blacks in the United States of America, racism remains a regular, organized cultural and social occurrence. Discrimination, inequality, and exclusion indicate health and social disparities, exhibited as both proximal and distal determinants influencing health, whose degrees cannot get defined.

Racism remains associated with poor housing, unemployment, substandard education, low income, and poor access to health services (Assari, 2018). Besides, the connected threats include employment hazards, exposure to pollutants, and allergens in the substandard schools, at home, unhealthy foods, violent neighborhoods, free access to drugs, and environmental exposures. Racism also leads to detrimental effects through negative mental and emotional sensations creating morbidity and psychopathy.

While social factors of health systems have enhanced people’s conceptualization of how specific settings impact a person’s capacity to decide on healthy choices, a structural violence outline surpasses customary dimensional examination. Therefore, a fundamental violence method can disclose diminuendos of social practices that function across several aspects of people’s lives in manners that may not directly seem connected to health (Assari, 2018). Structural determinants directly prevent access to proper healthcare services among the black race in the United States of America, acting to weaken health further and cultivate disparity. There exist considerable gaps linked to healthcare based on race and ethnicity. Minority inhabitants have a higher incidence of healthcare issues than whites in the United States.

Some programs and practices of healthcare arrangements consist of discrimination, racial inequality, stereotyping, and medical uncertainty as essential features in the building and maintenance of disparity and disease (Bailey et al., 2017). Intensifying the attention to encompass aspects like historical and structural racism, shifting relations in the global economy that influence housing policy, employment, Immigration policy, or federal incentives to industries affects the provision of universal healthcare.

Health Disparities Experienced by Racial/Ethnic Minority Population

Minorities like Hispanics, blacks, American Indians (Alaska Natives), Native Hawaiian, and Asians endure a disproportionate burden of disease, premature death, injury, and disability. For people of these ethnic (racial) minority populace, healthcare inequality can underscore lower life expectancy, reduced standards of wellbeing, loss of financial prospects, and insights of difference (Bailey et al., 2017). Such disparities in a society increase the costs of healthcare, decreased productivity, and social injustice. An increase in healthcare inequality among blacks can augment the adverse effects of such disparities on public health in the USA.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services has continued coordinating numerous programs to minimize and eradicate ethnic and racial health discrepancies like the Executive Order on the increasing contribution of African-Americans and the minority groups in state agendas concerning health issues (Rylko-Bauer & Farmer, 2016). Such programs include closing the health gap, Take a Loved One to the Doctor Day, and Universal Healthcare for American citizens. Notwithstanding modern development, racial (ethnic) disproportions continue to persevere among the ten prominent health indicators acknowledged in the 2010 national health goals.

Socio-economic attributes (such as poverty, education, and employment), social environment (like economic opportunities, educational level, work environments, and neighborhood), and lifestyle behaviors (alcohol intake, physical activity, and drug use) contribute to ethnic (racial) health inequality (Rylko-Bauer & Farmer, 2016). Besides, access to preventive medical services, such as vaccination and cancer screening, also add to racial/ethnic health inequalities. The degree of education affects specific health threats like cigarette smoking, obesity, and lack of physical exercise (Rylko-Bauer & Farmer, 2016). Although some blacks remain highly educated and have better employment and income, lack of awareness concerning the United States healthcare system, diverse societal approaches about the application of conservative medicine can create barriers to accessing adequate healthcare services.

The eradication of racial injustices in the healthcare sector requires significant modifications in the manner in which the country delivers healthcare services and the funding of the industry. Unequal provision of healthcare and unequal treatment of US citizens indicates the disparities that exist in the nation’s healthcare system for black people (Rylko-Bauer & Farmer, 2016). The health position of black people in the United States recognizes a higher incidence of cancer, cardiovascular disorders, diabetes, hypertension, sexually transmitted diseases, and obesity when compared with whites (Rylko-Bauer & Farmer, 2016). The inequalities in the healthcare system contribute to disparities in healthcare insurance coverage, poor health effects, and unequal access to health services among specific groups, with African-Americans bearing the impact of such health challenges.

Coverage Gains and Obstacles for African-Americans

African-Americans remain one of the most politically involved groups in the United States. They continue to champion their extraordinary challenges and viewpoints, as well as the joint effects of racism in healthcare provision (Wildeman & Wang, 2017). One of the enacted legislation, the Affordable Care Act, has enabled several US citizens to have sufficient health care coverage. The population of uninsured blacks has considerably reduced since the adoption of the Act.

However, the black population remains uninsured than their white counterparts. Besides, the expensiveness of some coverage options under the Act prevents access to healthcare among African-Americans (Wildeman & Wang, 2017). Wage inequality and other economic issues for black demographics also make insurance coverage unaffordable. The cost of insurance has caused the number of these blacks who remain underinsured and uninsured inadmissible high.

Examples of Health Care Disparities Experienced by Blacks in the United States

Health disparities refer to the variations that arise in healthcare service provision and availability of health services across various ethnic, racial, and socio-economic groups. In the USA, health inequalities occur among ethnic minorities like Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans, and Latinos. These historically excluded groups indicate a high prevalence of mortality, substandard health provisions, and a high rate of chronic conditions compared to whites (Wildeman & Wang, 2017). For most health disorders, blacks suffer an unequal problem of disease, death, and injury as compared to whites. Cancer incidents among blacks remain higher than among whites. African-Americans can develop diabetes as twice as white people.

Besides, blacks can develop asthma three times more than the white populace, whereas the occurrence of systematic lupus erythematosus (SLE) remains over twice higher among black women than white women. Other infectious health disorders like Hepatitis C remain more prevalent among blacks than those in America (Wildeman & Wang, 2017). Furthermore, gonorrhea cases, Syphilis, and Chlamydia cases remain more predominant among African-Americans than whites. Compared to whites, blacks have a general more significant risk of health conditions that lead to end-phase organ failures, such as chronic kidney illness, diabetes, and cardiovascular disorders.

The higher risk for blacks regarding organ failures makes the necessity for organ transplant to remain higher among blacks than whites, a requirement that the limited number of organs cannot address. Besides, the rate of organ rejection among African-Americans remains higher compared to other groups. However, the survival rate remains low after transplantation among blacks as compared to whites (Rylko-Bauer & Farmer, 2016). The factors that contribute to such disparities include poor access to health services, poverty, and exposure to environmental dangers. Besides, the inadequate level of education and personal and behavioral factors leads to health disparities among different races in the United States of America.

Strategies to Reduce Healthcare Disparities

Experts suggest that healthcare specialists accept that ethnicity and racism exist in healthcare provision to solve healthcare disparities among different races (Riley, 2018). Fewer focus efforts to enhance health outcomes that fail to deliberate on specific factors that may produce worse results for minority groups in the United States. Besides, it may not engender equal benefits among various groups, and in most cases, may intensify racial health inequalities.

Solving social factors, such as poor housing that can result in poor health conditions, but it can recognize past and contemporary policies, such as eviction processes, redlining, and disinvestment in low-income regions that stimulate housing instability.