Free Essay on the Health Status of African American Minority Group

The livelihood of African Americans has been prolonged. African Americans death rates have decreased over the years by 25 per cent over 17 years. There are still young African Americans dying from diseases affecting old white Americans despite the improvements in health. There is a higher chance of acquiring diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular diseases among this population as compared to whites. During the early years, chronic diseases may go undiagnosed. These health problems are apparent in this population due to some factors; lack of training of health care professionals in cultural education, inadequate nutrition, some communities' lack organisation and empowerment, there's lack of need for medical insurance coverage.

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Cultural, socioeconomic and socio-political barriers to health

Anything that restricts the use of healthcare services and makes it harder for people to access is a barrier to their health. When a person from a different ethnic group or race is excluded from participating equally, a cultural barrier evolves, with the most common ones being religion and language. It's a significant challenge being able to communicate effectively with people of different words that raises a lot of misunderstandings. Overcoming cultural barriers can be ensured through; appreciating cultural differences, opening up to new ideas and trying out new things, learning to accommodate others, learning a patients culture and learning some common phrases of the other religions.

Socioeconomic barriers to health may affect the quality of diet a patient has to vary between different ethnic groups. Levels of education quantify it in, wealth, income, and whether a person is employed or in business. These have diverse effects on health, and none can take the place of the other (Castro et al., 1998). Those of lower socioeconomic status tend to act in more harmful ways that ruin their health than the higher income earners. Sociopolitical barriers could be lack of insurance to medical facilities, poor access to health care providers and lack of mobility means to medical practitioners.

Public health professionals can ensure improvements in health by encouraging people to do checkups and follow-ups in community. Healthcare facilities by getting hooked to doctors and nurses, they can provide training to healthcare professionals on culture and how they can interact with their patients, they can work with the public sector to provide services that can promote services starting from childhood such as; housing, transportation, community organizations, business and most importantly education.

The federal government is accumulating data that may observe and trail health and conditions that may affect health, inclusive of high school graduation rates and poverty levels by implementing national initiatives the government is addressing cardiovascular diseases, stroke and heart diseases affecting African Americans. It is supporting scientific researches partnerships between community health members to argue conditions that affect some groups more than others and support movements on physical health creation of healthy food environments.

Community organisations can link people with community healthcare workers who can offer them less costly services and also treat them for free, connect people to housing and transportation services by linking them across sectors, ensure that people are assisted in observing medical follow-ups and visiting their doctors, and also by promoting effective health promotion programs.

Healthcare providers can encourage patients to ask questions by promoting a healthy relationship. They can join forces with first hand care physicians to lay down broad approaches to patient care, study more on societal and economic conditions that can affect one group more than it affects the other, work with other health caregivers to cancel out cultural impediments to health and connect people to community health centers that can remind them to take their meds.

Racial and Ethnic approaches to community health, solutions to health disparities

The REACH program is set to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities. Through this program, issues related to various ethnical groups are addressed.CDC addresses issues related to health by cutting on the social factors such as income, education and location (Clark, 1999). It gives funds to universities, community health organisations and local health departments. REACH brings together members of different communities to implement and carry out strategies that can benefit various members.

In the United States, some ethnic groups have worse medical services than others. This is due to poverty, discrimination, racism and lack of education, lack or fewer resources to support physical activity programs, poor eating behaviours, tobacco drug use and inaccessibility to health care services (Zane et al., 1991). Though the REACH program, smoking generalities have been decreased and encouraging eating of fruits and vegetables increased. Their partners have managed to create the train a trainer model to be used in all community populations.

The national centre for disease prevention and health promotion works in four major areas that help in supporting healthy choices and making their options more available. These areas include; approaches to the environment, the intervention of healthcare systems, linking clinical services to community programs and epidemiology. It works with academia, community health organisations and other agencies to improve the health of African Americans.

One of the critical approaches that have been used to promote the health of African American people is by strengthening the actions of the community for health services. This can be achieved in three levels; primary level, secondary level and tertiary level. At the fundamental level, factors that protect health are protected while those that limit good health are eliminated. At the secondary level, a progression of chronic ailments is prevented by detecting and intervening early. This is done by targeting individuals whose symptoms have not shown but are at risk of conducting diseases based on their environmental surroundings. At the tertiary level, consequences of the conditions that have been established are reduced by improving the patient's quality of life. This is an excellent process to monitor and improve the health of African American since it's a growing minority group.

References

Benowitz, N. L., Blum, A., Braithwaite, R. L., & Castro, F. G. (1998). Tobacco use among US racial/ethnic minority groups-African Americans, American Indians and Alaska natives, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics: a report of the surgeon general.

Clark, R., Anderson, N. B., Clark, V. R., & Williams, D. R. (1999). Racism as a stressor for African Americans: A biopsychosocial model. American psychologist, 54(10), 805.

Willia Sue, S., Fujino, D. C., Hu, L. T., Takeuchi, D. T., & Zane, N. W. (1991). Community mental health services for ethnic minority groups: A test of the cultural responsiveness hypothesis. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 59(4), 533.

Ms, D. R. (1999). Race, socioeconomic status, and health the added effects of racism and discrimination. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 896(1), 173-188.