Racial And Ethnic Inequality In Health Care Essay

Due to racial and ethnic inequality in health care, such as easy access to health insurance and medical doctors, African Americans in the United States are at a higher risk than whites when it comes to diseases. For instance, African Americans are more likely to die of heart disease, stroke, prostate, and breast cancer, then whites and African Americans children are more than twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma, than white children. (Rosenblum & Travis, 2016, p. 304) This disparity could be contributed to many factors, such as the reduction of spending on public hospitals and other basic services, as well as income gaps and social status between rich and poor.
The income gap and differences in status as affected the lack of easy access to health insurance and medical doctors, which as contributed to aversive racism, in the manner of unconscious biases regarding racial and ethnic minority groups. Case in point, when a racial-ethnic minority shows up at a medical facility for care, a health care provider might avoid care, …show more content…
Few also believe other providers practice inequalities in other medical fields, but not their own. (Mallinger& Lamberti, 2010) This unwillingness to accept one's own implicit bias can impact health care in the United States by how they provide services to racial-ethnic groups, building mistrust in racial-ethnic communities. Racial-ethnic groups might decide to not seek medical help until their health become unmanageable, which could cost the health care system more money since they would end up in the emergency room, most of the time. The increased flow of racial-ethnic groups in the emergency room will become standard. Medical care would only benefit people of higher income and social status and cause inequality to continue in the healthcare