Research Paper on Health Disparities Among African American and Hispanic Populations

Introduction

Health disparities refer to existent variations among different groups of people in the United States regarding access to 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. 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.

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Arguably, the trend is not universal as immigrant Hispanics are prove better health outcome compared with the whites. 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. 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. Regarding ethnic differences, there have been disparities on many measurable health conditions. For instance, there are health disparities among the African American and Hispanic populations in the health outcomes and access to healthcare services.

Research Question: What Are the Healthcare Disparities Between the African American and Hispanic Populations and the Impact of the Healthcare Diversity on Healthcare Policy and Planning in the United States of America?

Thesis Statement: This paper will assess the health disparities between the African American and Hispanic populations regarding access to healthcare services and the health outcomes and measures that can be used to improve health indicators for the two United States ethnic populations.

Healthcare Disparities by Ethnicity and why they Matter

Kawachi, Daniels, and Robinson (2005) note that health data in the United States of America is stratified between different races which are more realistic compared to classifying health outcomes based on class. However, Kawachi et al. (2005) note that in the race-stratified representation of the healthcare data there is significant tension on account of the health disparities. In this case, it is pointed out that health disparity data on race is created to reflect on the biological differences, as a proxy to class disparities and also to make an attribute that race and class exist independently. The use of race-based stratification of health disparity helps to use to commonalities of health outcomes in races instead of races which could bring conflicts regarding income representation. Previous racial oriented policies such as the Minorities Health and Health Disparities Research and Education Act can benefit from the race-based health disparity data presentation. Besides, achieving racial equality in health through policies can help to overcome the injustices of the past against minority groups (Kawachi et al., 2005). 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-related problems such as cancer, diabetes and other cardiovascular issues which have been identified as a significant health issue in the Hispanic ethnic group.

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 ethnic groups can be used to generalize many other critical social aspects such as the level of income, health access amongst ethnic groups as well as the differences in lifestyles between 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 according to Kawachi et al. (2005). Understanding healthcare disparities between 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 et al., 2005). The information from this research can be added to the existing data on the ethnic disparities in healthcare for the African American and the Hispanic populations which can improve future decision making on healthcare policies.

Lifestyles adopted by 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 African Americans in the United States of America. For instance, the impact of drinking behavior by the African Americans and the Hispanics can further help to understand their different health outcomes. In 2010, research by Chartier and Caetano (2010) found out that Hispanic males are heavy drinkers compared to the African Americans males. On the other hand, African Americans females are heavy drinkers compared to the female Hispanics.

Healthcare Access and Affordable Care Act Enrollment

In understanding the disparity between the African Americans and the Hispanics, the number of people covered by insurance in different ethnic groups can give a picture on the healthcare outcomes between the two population groups. 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 Hispanic and the African American populations, there is a significant disparity in access with the African Americans having a high access rate compared to the Hispanics 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 African American have the highest poverty levels. Chen et al. (2016) show that the Hispanics in the post ACA era has been able to access greater care as well as reduced the number of the population who previously foregone treatment. However, the same study finds that the introduction of ACA has not had a statistically significant change in access to care. Therefore, the Hispanics have largely benefited in the inauguration of the Affordable Care Act in 2014 which has improved the population health care outcomes. As such, the ACA through health insurance has been able to achieve significant healthcare equality amongst the Hispanic and the African American populations. Future policy direction based on the study would be to increase insurance enrollment which could significantly improve access to healthcare in both Hispanic and the African American populations.

Obesity Indicators in African American and Hispanic Populations

Overweight prevalence amongst children in the United States has been on a rising trend for decades and to understand the disparity in the cases of obesity in African American, and the Hispanic populations can be used to improve measures to overcome the problem. Obesity is a significant health problem in the United States of America today, and data showing the difference in its prevalence between the African American and the Hispanic populations can be used to assess health outcomes disparity between the two populations. The African American and the Hispanic children have shown a high prevalence of obesity in both the African American and the Hispanic people and parental education was linked to the health of the children. The number of Hispanics/Latinos and the African Americans with obesity is very high with a small difference margin where the African Americans 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 African Americans (Haas et al., 2003). Haas et al. (2003) seek to identify the relationship between socioeconomic status and health insurance vary in relation to the prevalence of overweight children in Hispanic and African American populations. The research found out that in children, there is a significant risk of obesity in equal measure in Hispanic and African American people whereas in adults the likelihood amongst the Hispanic population being overweight is high. Therefore, the disparity in overweight is concentrated in adults with the Hispanics having a high population of grown-ups who are obese compared to the African American population.

Hospital Readmission Data for Hispanics and African American Populations

Assessing the hospital readmission rate difference between the Hispanics and the African American population can be used to determine the healthcare access and outcome disparity. 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 African Americans and the Hispanics. Regarding insurance, a high percentage of the African Americans had private and public insurance compared to the Hispanics. In Medicare, the African Americans had the most extensive insurance coverage in the study Jiang et al., (2005). The study found out that the African Americans 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 conditions such as ophthalmic disease, end-stage renal disease, renal complications, and ischemic heart diseases were high amongst the Hispanics compared to the African Americans.

Serious health problems such as hypertension and congestive heart failure were very high in both the races, but there were more African Americans 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 African Americans 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 African Americans in both 30-day and 180-day interval. Besides, the risk...