Health Care of African Americans, Essay Example

Equality in healthcare is one of the major issues in the current American society and is one of the issues tackled by Smiley (2006). This expository paper draws content from Smiley (2006) in explaining healthcare disparities in the United States, its causes, and its potential solutions, as well as other factors affecting such disparities. This paper forwards the thesis that there are clear disparities caused by a variety of factors in the healthcare received by minorities such as African Americans, from those received by the rest of American society, and that there are potential solutions that can address these disparities.

According to Smiley (2006), inequalities in healthcare can account for a great number of deaths among members of the African American racial minority in the United States. Smiley (2006) defined two types of disparities in United States healthcare. The first type is disparity in access. That is, minority groups such as Blacks and Hispanics cannot access healthcare services as freely as the Whites. Smiley (2006) explained that this is because of many reasons, such as that minority groups are less likely to have health insurance, that they are more likely to be living in underserved communities, and that they are more likely to feel insecure about and untrusting of the healthcare system. In order to solve this problem, Smiley (2006) believed that it is important to increase the percentage of healthcare professionals belonging to the minorities. This solution is based on the observation that health professionals among the minorities are much more likely to serve minorities and be trusted by minorities than non-minority healthcare professionals. However, minority health professionals, particularly physicians, were revealed to make up only 10% of the total number of doctors in the United States. Thus, there is a need for society and government to take action in order to give members of the minority greater opportunities to take on healthcare studies and become doctors and nurses. Other solutions to the disparity in access mentioned by Smiley (2006) are universal health insurance, guaranteed primary medical care, elimination of intervention biases and government action to increase overall the standard of living of minority groups in order to help them afford access to healthcare insurance. The second type of disparity is disparity in the quality of healthcare received (Smiley, 2006). That is, Smiley (2006) contends that “African Americans receive lower quality healthcare” for such ailments as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases, for surgery care, and for cancer diagnosis. Smiley (2006) identifies the cause of this problem as healthcare professionals who are unable to provide care that is sensitive to the culture of their patients. This implies that the solution is to make healthcare professionals more aware of minority culture, in order for them to be able to attend to such minorities’ healthcare needs more effectively. Smiley (2006) discusses that other factors which significantly affect these disparities are environment and lifestyle, which expose minorities to greater risks. Smiley (2006) also discussed how laws focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation and how mental health is also a significant concern in healthcare.

As shown from the work of Smiley (2006) disparities in healthcare exist in the American Society. Blacks and Hispanics are less able to access healthcare than Whites, and the healthcare that they are able to access is not equal in quality as those that the Whites are able to access. The causes of these disparities are many, but there are viable solutions that can be forwarded in order to gradually decrease the disparities and bring true equality in the United States.

Reference

Smiley, T. (2006). The Covenant. Third World Press.