Racism In The Healthcare System

Over the 200-year history of the United States of America, race has been central to various social issues. To this day, March 24th, 2017, the socially constructed concept of race has a major influence on how a person is treated by society (Onwuachi-Willig, 2016). In this section of the class we are discussing the interplay between race and healthcare.

This paper focuses disparities and if racism has any influence on treatments given by healthcare providers. The results of the study showed that of the 37 cases tested, 26 of them showed slightly significant evidence of racist beliefs. One of the more confusing aspects of this paper was that I didn’t understand how the researchers measured racism. I felt that measuring racism was an almost daunting task as there is an element of human subjectivism. Furthermore, a better are of study would have been to analyze the geographic influence on disparities. Similar to what we learned in class, disparities often occur because people of a particular region do not have direct access to healthcare. Overall, I felt that this paper had numerous statistics about how and why racism plays a role in disparities, but the results were rather ambiguous in my eyes.

Healthcare workers and leaders must bring awareness to ethnic disparities within the communities; this can be done by educating providers on cultural diversity. Healthcare workers need to have the ability to communicate and understand patients from an array of cultural backgrounds. Negative stereotypes of AA may unintentionally persuade healthcare providers who are unfamiliar with this diverse population to provide low-quality care. “Even though the impact on health care of cultural differences between racial groups is recognized, less is known about dissimilarity within ethnic groups, especially concerning cultural factors that shape health beliefs (Rovner, Casten, & Harris, 2013, p. 29).” The absence of diversity and cultural competency in health care hinders the quality of care provided.

A notable discrepancy exists between health care received by the black population in comparison to the white population. However, the foundation of health care inconsistencies has yet to be firmly established. Instead, conflicting views prioritize causes of health care disparities as due to social determinants or due to individual responsibility for health (Woolf & Braveman, 2011). Emerging literature also indicates that health care providers propagate disparities by employing implicit biases (Chapman, Kaatz, & Carnes, 2013; Dovidio, Fiske, 2012). This paper aims to discuss black health care disparities as a function of socially constructed beliefs that both consciously and unconsciously influence health care professionals practice.

There are vulnerable groups that have significant problems in the health care system, due to this population being made vulnerable because of their financial circumstances or place of residence, health, age, race, mental or physical state. Access to health care across different populations are the main reason for current disparities in the United States health care system. Moreover, with a large amount attention being given to racial disparities in health, the meaning of race has come under increased scientific examination. (Sondik, 1997) Consequently, race remains to be one of the most politically charged topics in American life, because it's linked to sociocultural element often has led to classifications that have been ambiguous and improperly

Gordon Moskowitz and his co-authors’ (2012) expands on this discussion of unconscious bias by associating it with stereotyping certain racial groups. The providers’ unconscious biases are referred to as implicit biases, and demonstrate usefulness if correctly used to identify groups more readily susceptible to a health condition than others (996). When used correctly to identify these individuals, patient outcomes have a positive outcome. However, a hasty assumption that leads to an incorrect stereotype results in severe negative outcomes from a resulting incomplete or inaccurate diagnosis by the physician (1000). These implicit biases also tie back to the previous theme

Racial segregated healthcare is not new in America it can be traced back to beginning of slavery. “The emergence of theories such as polygenism, and movement such as anthropometry, phrenology, and craniometry in the early 1800’s as early as the Jim Crow laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 only helped to reinforce these disparities.” (Source 3) Also between 1876 and 1965 laws are created equal facilities for minority’s black and white creating it prohibited for minority physicians to follow or receive education in white facilities. (Source 3) In 2011 reports on healthcare quality and disparities, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) finds that low-income individuals and people of color experience more barriers to care and receive poor quality care. (Source

During my fourth year in college, I enrolled in a course called Psychology of Health Disparities. My decision to enroll in this course stemmed from my experience as a medical assistant, and my duty involved working in clinical settings low socioeconomic status individuals (SES). Even though this class met only once a week, it deeply impacted the way I viewed the public health care system. Health disparities are particularly evident in the United States health care system, mostly because of factors like SES, race, and education as well. Not only did we explore the causes of these disparities, we focused on how individuals with lower incomes were affected. In the private clinic where I worked, most individuals were under health insurance by

Healthcare diversities among healthcare professionals have been a challenge within the healthcare system. There are various publications that state that the underrepresented minorities have a higher chance of not graduating medical school, accruing high student loans, and ultimately were unsatisfied with their jobs (Pololi et al., 2013). This is not only disturbing, but this represents the individuals who are or will be servicing the public on a daily basis. As the population increases, racial differences increase, so to combat these disparities cultural competencies have to come into play within the health-professions workforce. For instance, although African Americans constitute to 13% of the population, in the physician workforce they only account for 4%, also women who are part of the workforce outweigh the amount of men by at least 4%, respectively (U.S. Census Bureau, 2014). Coincidentally, whites make up to 49% (both men and women) of the total U.S. MD active physicians based on the labor workforce statistics of 2013.

Although the United States is a leader in healthcare innovation and spends more money on health care than any other industrialized nation, not all people in the United State benefit equally from this progress as a health care disparity exists between racial and ethnic minorities and white Americans. Health care disparity is defined as “a particular type of health difference that is closely linked with social or economic disadvantage…adversely affecting groups of people who have systematically experienced greater social and/or economic obstacles to health and/or clean environment based on their racial or ethnic group; religion; socioeconomic status; gender; age; mental health; cognitive, sensory or physical disability; sexual orientation or gender identity; geographic location; or other characteristics historically linked to discrimination or exclusion” (National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities [NPAEHD], 2011, p. 3). Overwhelming evidence shows that racial and ethnic minorities receive inferior quality health care compared to white Americans, and multiple factors contribute to these disparities, including geography, lack of access to adequate health coverage, communication difficulties between patients and providers, cultural barriers, and lack of access to providers (American College of Physicians,

Given that new racism masks racial predisposition, current racism restrains the public from addressing ethical issues and from creating social improvements. By “[u]ndermining or disguising the impact of racism on racialized health disparities,” the AJPH editorial on “Black Lives Matter: A Commentary on Racism and Public Health” notes that “the perpetuation of these inequities” (Garcia et al. 27) initiates constant ignorance and does not lessen the problems of racism. Instead, racism falls into institutional categories that globally spreads to cultivate its immoral notion. Persistently oblivious to racism, society adapts to malicious racist dispositions as it denies the presence of racism. On the other hand, the journal article “The Past, Present, and Future of Informed Consent in Research and Translational Medicine” mentions the emerging issues of bioethics from past and future complications (Susan M. Wolf et al. 9). Emphasizing concerns on informed consent, the researchers call on the complex issues by exposing how decision-making affects professionals and their participants. Discussing future innovations, the researchers assert that professionals must carry the participants’ choice in a methodical fashion that aims to protect individual rights. As patient advocates, professionals must respect patient privacy, private ownership, and informed consent. Therefore, affirmative action offers a

This paper discusses some of this areas in more details as wells as areas that need a deeper look. Health care workers for example, health care practice, residency of minorities and opposing views. These concerns are known as health disparities, which refer to differences in health status of different groups of people. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether perceived discrimination in the health care system based on race is correlated with delays in pharmacy prescriptions or delays in medical tests or treatments.

In the field of health care there is a pervasive notion that many blacks are presumed to be low income. It is interesting to see how blackness is associated with low income and class. For example, questions regarding where black patients reside and what their current occupation is can be directly linked to racial profiling in health care. The author contends black patients are more likely to receive a lower quality of health care due to one’s insurance status and income. Here, too, one can maintain that race is deeply interwoven into the construct of class and accessibility (Smedly 2012). As a result, class serves a higher purpose of being granted access to the accessibility of better medical resources and standard of care. Conversely, the construct of class not only gives and takes away in its relation to recieving appropriate resources in

One of the points raised in IOM’s article to prove that racism is a prevalent cause of health care disparity is the way the health care system is set-up, meaning at times, some hospitals and clinics can adopt a policy to contain health care cost, but may pose hindrances to minority patients’ capability to access the care.

The main purpose of this article was to unexamined biases, to see how much they contribute as well as to address ethnic and racial in health care disparities. Biases can be referred to as favoritism, a favor of one and against another, very systematic and differing by racial and ethnic groups. Many psychologist has turned their focus and studies on common biases, which biases influence medical decisions and interaction.