Research Proposal: Race/Ethnicity and Health Care Challenges

Research Proposal: Race/Ethnicity and Health Care Challenges

Introduction

American healthcare is advancing with the advancements in technology that aid diagnosis, treatment, and care. Research points that in as much that there is an overall improvement in healthcare investment, racial minorities do not receive equivalent treatment as their nonminority counterparts who suffer the same conditions. The bigger picture is that the minorities end up leading in morbidity and mortality that result from chronic illnesses. Institute of Medicine (IOM) researched in this relationship and concluded that there is an unfortunate occurrence in which racial minorities get worse treatment as compared to their other nonminority colleagues. They defined ethnic differences in access to healthcare as the disparity that does not emanate from the inability to access healthcare but as a result of institutional factors that hinder people from the services as they access healthcare. One reason to blame for this is that minorities, especially Hispanics and Blacks, do not secure equivalent insurance from their employers. This research will focus on the factors that make it hard for minorities to access healthcare like the rest, majoring in insurance, and the cost of healthcare.

Problem statement

The government, through its program dubbed “Healthy People 2020” aspires to avail affordable healthcare to everyone by improving accessibility to comprehensive, quality healthcare services. The former president, Barack Obama, introduced comprehensive health insurance under Obama Care to enable many people to have comprehensive health cover. However, research still indicates that many of the minorities still cannot secure health insurance from their employer as compared to the nonminority. Therefore, access to comprehensive healthcare should focus on affording each person comprehensive health insurance to help the individual deal with the cost issues around healthcare. Healthcare in America will not be complete if the minorities still die from chronic illnesses that could be treated. Numerous researches of this decade point that Hispanic and Black suffering from the same illness as a white person is more likely to die from the condition than the white counterpart. This is primarily due to the high cost of care among the minorities as compared to nonminority. Therefore, the following questions may arise:

1. Is racial difference in healthcare a problem in America
2. What are some of the factors that contribute to racial/ ethical differences in access to healthcare?
3. What is the ration of Medicare beneficiaries to the white Medicare beneficiaries?
4. What are the financial barriers that the minorities experience when they try to aces quality healthcare?
5. Is there a relationship between education and the level of healthcare access among the racial group?

Objectives

The disparity in healthcare access across the races is a topic that has been in existence for decades. America puts a number of efforts to curb this, the Affordable Care Act, being the latest. This paper seeks to:

1. Evaluate the milestone covered by the Affordable Care Act to bright this disparity
2. Establish some of the root causes, or historical injustices of that might have made the fight against this tendency too tough
3. The comprehensive healthcare insurance policies among the minorities as compared to nonminority
4. The relationship between tertiary education and the difference in access to healthcare by the minorities, basing on Latinos and blacks.

Preliminary literature review

Racial/ ethnic disparity in healthcare is an old topic that has attracted the attention of many scholars. All writings agree that minorities are on the receiving end healthcare discriminations, especially when it comes to affordability. According to Alberto et al. (np), healthcare insurance among children of Latinos, Blacks, and whites show a significant difference. Among the blacks or Latinos, the children were either poor to fair in terms of health while the children from white families were always better. The same research further exposed that children with parents who had higher education- from Asians and whites- were more likely to receive better healthcare than the ones whose parents had little or no tertiary education- Blacks and Latinos. This creates a delicate connection between parental education and the ease of access to healthcare. Egede (np) carried out a review of healthcare trends to establish the connection between race and healthcare access. He also concluded that The Institute of Medicine (IOM) made viable reports of the possibility of disparity in healthcare. In the year 2017, the National Academies of Sciences carried out an investigation to inform their statement on alleged racial discrimination in health. They investigated some of the things they considered the root causes of these differences. They expressed the same concern that despite the efforts that America is taking to bridge the gap that exists in healthcare, “racial and ethnic disparities are arguably the most obstinate inequities in health over time” (n.p). This translates to higher rates of chronic diseases among the minorities and consequently, higher morbidity. The infant mortality rate also rises as a result of this skewness in healthcare provision.

Methodology

This paper will entirely be conceptual research, which relies on the research done by other scholars to establish a trend that can inform a given conclusion. Several research articles exist in public libraries like PubMed and Google Scholar. They will form the basis of my research and thesis.