Essay Sample on Health Disparities Among African Americans and Hispanic Populations

Introduction

Health disparities refer to existent variations among different groups of people in the United States regarding access of potential healthcare that can be determined through the differences in mortality rates, the burden of particular diseases, and other measurable health conditions of the populations or groups. In most cases, the term disparity is used to refer to differences in attainment of full healthcare services amongst the different races or ethnic groups. It is, however, important to note that the term can as well be used to refer to differences in other aspects like gender, socioeconomic status, and geographic location, life expectancy, and the health outcomes of the groups. Regarding ethnic differences, there have been disparities on many measurable health conditions. For instance, there are health disparities among African Americans and Hispanic populations which can be found regarding health outcomes and access to healthcare services. This paper will assess the health disparities between the African American and Hispanic populations and measures that can be used to improve access and healthcare conditions of the US populations.

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Research question: How do racial differences affect the access to healthcare services and the healthcare outcomes amongst the Blacks and the Hispanic populations and the impact of this healthcare diversity on healthcare policy and planning in the United States of America?

Healthcare Disparities in the USA

Measuring healthcare differences between races is a fundamental approach to assessing the healthcare situation in the United States. The variation in healthcare between the ethnic groups can be used to generalize many other critical social aspects such as the level of income, health access amongst the ethnic groups as well as the differences in lifestyles between the different racial groups. Understanding the disparities in healthcare between different races can significantly improve the management of the healthcare needs in the entire population. Different ethnic groups have different social and economic characteristics and understanding the healthcare disparity can help to improve healthcare equality and address individual racial healthcare problems significantly. Understanding the healthcare disparities between the races will also have a significant implication on the future direction of the healthcare policies because some healthcare problems can only be addressed by setting the right policies in place (Kawachi, Daniels, & Robinson, 2005). The information from this research can go towards improving the existing data on the disparities in healthcare based on the races which can improve future decision making on healthcare policies. Lifestyles adopted by the ethnic groups that are cultural have an impact on healthcare and can be understood better by assessing the existing healthcare disparity between the Hispanics and the Blacks in the United States of America. For instance, the healthcare outcomes impact of the difference in drinking behavior between the Blacks and the Hispanics can further be understood by assessing the disparities in healthcare. In 2010, research by Chartier & Caetano (2010) found out that Hispanics male are heavy drinkers compared to the blacks and the black ethnic group females are heavy drinkers compared to the female Hispanics. This data can be used to understand further the relationship or implication of drinking on healthcare by assessing the healthcare disparity between the two groups. Drinking is a significant risk factor in many healthcare problems such as cancer, diabetes and other cardiovascular issues which have been identified as a significant health issue in the Hispanic ethnic group.

Healthcare Access and Affordable Care Act Utilization Disparity

Healthcare access refers to the number of the population who can access care in the prevailing social and economic conditions. The population access to healthcare after the introduction of the Affordable Care Act has significantly increased in the general population. The introduction of the ACA expanded the general population under insurance which increased healthcare access. Healthcare insurance is a significant cause of the disparity in the access to care across the ethnic and racial groups. Chen et al., 2016 carried out a pioneer study to assess the difference in racial and ethnic group's access to healthcare after the introduction of the ACA. The study has found a 7% decrease in the number of uninsured African Americans and Hispanics but notes that there is a high number of uninsured people amongst the Hispanics.

Despite an increase in insurance coverage between the races, there is a significant disparity in access with the African Americans having a high access rate compared to the Latinos in the post ACA implementation. The Latinos have shown to have a high number of uninsured people despite a study by Haas et al., (2003) showing that blacks have the highest poverty levels. The blacks and the Latino children have shown a high prevalence of obesity in both the races and parental education was linked to the health of the children. The number of Hispanics/Latinos and the Blacks with obesity is very high with a small difference margin where the blacks have a high obesity percentage of 43% and the Latinos at 37% which indicate almost equal poor health amongst the children in both the Hispanics and the Blacks (Haas et al., 2003).

Preventable Readmission in the Case of Diabetes

Diabetes is a significant healthcare problem in the United States of America that affects all the races and ethnic groups. The issue of hospital readmission can be used to indicate healthcare disparity because it is reflected in the ethnic group's healthcare access and economic potential. The study points out high readmission of patients with diabetes amongst the Blacks and the Hispanics. Regarding insurance, a high percentage of the Blacks had private and public insurance compared to the Hispanics. In Medicare, the Blacks had the highest insurance coverage in the study Jiang et al., (2005). The study found out that the Blacks had a high rate of diabetes acute complications of 12.4% compared to the 9.3% of the Hispanics with the disease who were covered in public, private and Medicare insurance. However, other diseases such as ophthalmic disease, end-stage renal disease, renal complications, and ischemic heart diseases were high amongst the Hispanics compared to the blacks.

Serious health problems such as hypertension and congestive heart failure were very high in both the races, but there were more Blacks with the diseases compared to the Hispanics across all the insurance covers. This shows that despite significant insurance coverage and an increase in access in Hispanics and the Blacks there was a high burden of disease in the two ethnic groups. Readmission in the hospital according to the study by Jiang et al., (2005) was high amongst the Hispanics compared to the Blacks in both 30-day and 180-day interval. Besides, the risk associated with the Hispanics being readmitted was very high, especially amongst the Medicare-insured patients. Regarding obesity and diabetes, Blacks have the highest prevalence of both healthcare problems which is highly linked to lifestyle characteristics. Armstrong et al., (2007) notes that the Hispanics have a high physician distrust in a study carried out between 1998 and 1999. This study can back up the high readmission rate amongst the Hispanics compared to the Blacks due to the high distrust of the physicians in the United States adding up to the rift in healthcare outcomes.

Unequal Treatment of the Hispanics and the Blacks

Unequal treatment is a primary healthcare diversity problem that presents itself differently between the different ethnic groups. Research by Nelson (2002) has identified that despite comparable insurance cover and incomes especially between the Hispanics and the Blacks the difference in healthcare outcomes differ. Health problems such as cancer, high death rates, and heart diseases are high amongst the minorities in the United States of America. The health disparities represented amongst the Hispanics and the Blacks can be traced back to the high social and economic inequality as well as the racial and ethnic discrimination cases that persist to be experienced by the two groups. SteelFisher (2004) notes that the average annual death rate between 1999 and 2001 shows that Blacks have the highest death rate compared to the Hispanics of 1.12% and 0.51% respectively. This is an indication that between 2001 and 2016 according to Chen et al. (2016) the health outcomes of Blacks have improved compared to the Hispanics.

According to available evidence on health disparities, it is a fact that there are differences in the outcome of health across different ethnic groups of people. McDonough (2017) argue that the inequalities are because of health inequalities or systemic variations in the health of different groups of people belonging to odd places in the society. Ethnicity and race are social constructions that have significant effects on the lives of the individuals belonging to a particular race or ethnicity. They define one's perception or how he or she views others (McClelland and Perez, 2018). The social construction, which is the foundation of ethnicity, is developed from social issues like actual policies, perceptions, and practices.

Moreover, because the concept of race is rich in history and is involved, it has measures of implications of how the health status of groups has changed over the years. According to data on the progression and changes that have taken place ethnic health status, it can be observed that racial disparities have the major obstacle in the health sector over the years. Even though the United States has made significant strides in the health sector, there has been a drawback when it comes to issues of ethnic health inequity. To address the problems of racial injustice, the US government should focus on the social, historical, and political context of a given ethnic group or race.

The African Americans and the Hispanics who are minority ethnic groups in the United States have recorded health disparities in many forms. The two ethnic groups show higher rates of health determinants like premature deaths and chronic diseases. Arguably, the trend is not universal as immigrant Hispanics are prove better health outcome compared with the whites. The case of immigrant Hispanics is majorly not taken into consideration because it raises the question of the duration they have stayed in America (McDonough, 2017). The other factor to put into account is the fact that there has been a decrease in the level of disparities. The reduction in the gaps is not as a result of the improvement of health strategies towards the African Americans and the Hispanics but rather as an outcome of decreasing in the health of majority groups (Kings et al., 2018). For instance, according to research, there has been a reduction in the life expectancy for the white females because of factors like a drug overdose, the rise of suicide level and diseases that are linked to alcohol intake.

Conclusion

Even though the government has made steps in narrowing the disparities, it has not eliminated the issue of inequality. Further, the narrowing of the disparity gap does not become wholly dependent on the health outcomes. Other factors have to be considered to ascertain if the difference was indeed narrowed. Health disparities have persisted in specific health conditions such as in human immunodeficiency virus health outcomes. For example between the African American and the white majority, people were diagnosed with immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)...