How Medical Practices have Impacted Minority Healthy Inequalities (Essay Sample)

How Medical Practices have Impacted Minority Healthy InequalitiesName:Institution:
How Medical Practices have Impacted Minority Ethnic Inequalities
Introduction
People's perceptions about health and illness have evolved tremendously over time and given them a chance of breaking away from the conventional biomedicine way of dealing with health and illness matters (BetterHealth, 2014). Sociologists have asserted that sociology of healthy and illness which is also called the Sociology of Health and wellness embodies the interaction between society and health (Segall & Fries, 2011). Thus sociologists claim that sociology of healthy and illness impacts the morbidity and mortality rates of a society (Timmermans & Haas, 2008). This contradicts the western medicine (biomedicine) which involves patient-practitioner relationships. Unlike biomedicine, it gives explanations on why patients need healthcare and highlights their responsibility towards adhering or neglecting medical regimes (Conrad 2008). For a long time, being healthy or ill has been attributed to either biological or natural causatives but recent research has indicated that beliefs, ethnic traditions, cultural factors and socioeconomic effects potentiate the spread of diseases (White 2002). This essay will review literature on how medical practices have compounded health inequalities among minority ethnic groups.
Literature Review
Sociologists measure health, illness and associated outcome by age, gender, class, physical learning, ethnicity, cultures and race (Ahmad & Bradby 2007). According to Ahmad & Bradby (2007) these divisions are linked to features of industrial societies and they are peculiar among different groups depending on their interpretations. In addition, using ‘race' as an attribute for given groups of people has a long history. Slavery and slave trade escalated racial prejudice and it set hierarchies in societies which acted as catalysts in depriving the less privileged their human rights (Pettigrew 2013). In addition, Littlewood and Lipsedge (1989) points out that medicine has also been a huge perpetrator of racial bias through its scientific practice. During the Slavery era, medicine became a major force in instilling animosity among slaves who desired to free themselves by running away from their masters. It is asserted that whenever slaves attempted to run away, they were diagnosed with drapetomaina (A diagnosis which was designed to indicate irrational thought among running away slaves) and dysaethesia Aethiopica.
According to Nazroo (1998), ethnicity can be perceived to be double sided. Each side of ethnicity impacts the poor health of ethnic minority groups in different ways. The first and widely acknowledged perspective involves the class inequalities bred by the limitation in material possessions. This circumstance results in increased risks of poor health among ethnic minorities who lack purchasing power, including for medical care (Lundeberg, 1991; Vagero & Illsley, 1995; Macintyre, 1997; Smith et al. 1994.). Similarly, Nazroo (1977) noted that material factors are crucial in the apparent disparities between the majority and minority ethnic groups because they set a wide and apparent difference between health status and services acquired. Although the correlation between ethnicity and heath has always prompted researchers to explore economic disparities between the majority and minority ethnic groups, Smaje (1996) argues that by doing so, a loop-hole is left since economic disparities can not be directly linked to the apparent difference between the two groups.
Another study by Smidley et al. (2003) reveals that discrimination in conjunction with proximal and distal factors increase ethnic inequalities among the majority and minority ethnic groups. For instance, Escarce et al. (2006) points out that there is an apparent unequal incidence of diabetes among non-whites as opposed to whites; a state that increases their vulnerability to experiencing rapid decrease in individual health status. Furthermore this status is related to an increase in their morbidity and mortality. In addition, research has projected that diabetes is both disproportionately severe and dominant among Hispanic and African Americans when contrasted with non-Hispanic Whites. To affirm this, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projects that in 2011, the age-dependent dominance in diabetes varied across blacks (12.4%), Hispanic (11.1%) and Whites (7%) although were standard errors of 1.2%, 1.4% and 0.5% respectively. Conceding to these demographics, Mokdad et al., (2001) also projects that blacks have the highest probability of being diagnosed with diabetes (11%) while Narayan et al. (2003) claims that Hispanics possess the highest risk of contracting diabetes.
In an analysis on data obtained from the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HANES), Zhang et al. (1988) theorizes that ethnic inequalities exist but socioeconomic factors may not be the fundamental causes of the witnessed health inequalities. Nevertheless, Zhang et al. (1988) also points out that Hispanics have the highest comorbidity rates and complication when compared with their counterparts, non-Hispanic Whites. Similarly, an analysis by Black et al. (1999) of the Hispanic Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly population data affirms further that Hispanics possess escalated rates of comorbidities and complications compared to whites. All the studies mentioned above portray Hispanics as a minority ethnic group that is vulnerable to illness because of their characteristics.
In conclusion, different minority ethnic groups appear to be disproportionately disadvantaged for health outcomes due to social economic factors that limit their access to proper healthcare and other biological or genetic factors that make them more vulnerable to increased comorbidities and morality rates than the majority ethnic groups. Science and medicine at large have played a part in increasing the gap between the groups by associating minorities with self-inflicted or genetic disadvantages.
Research question: How Does Medical Diagnosis Increase Ethnic Minority Inequalities?
REFERENCES
Ahmad, W., & Bradby, H. (2007). Locating Ethnicity and Health: Exploring Concepts and Contexts. The University of Warwick
BetterHealth (2014). Mental Illness Treatments. Betterhealth.vic.gov.au. Retrieved
28 February 2014. < ...