Health Equity and How it Affects Healthcare for All
For so long, the health care system has tried to provide equal health opportunities for everyone. Health equity is having a fair chance of attaining the best possible health for oneself through equal access to all forms of health care. It eliminates the factors that lead to unfair health opportunities.
These factors include:
- Social factors – include wealth, environment and community where one lives, workplace, and income; social disparities affect an individual’s access to healthcare daily. People in the lower to the middle class have limited access to quality care. It is no secret that to get the best care possible, you need to have all the available resources such as financial resources, means of travel, and accessibility of the home environment to health care providers and institutions. The health and standard of living of residents in rural and underserved areas are impacted by the fact that many of them have limited access to care.
Higher-income (earnings and other money acquired annually) is associated with a lower likelihood of disease and premature death (Woolf et al., 2015).
- Racial differences – racial and ethnic minorities receive subpar care and are at a disadvantage when it comes to health. Discrimination could in turn lead to avoidance of seeking health care altogether.
National Academy of Medicine conducted a study in 2005 and found that “racial and ethnic minorities receive lower-quality health care than white people—even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable.”
- Educational gap – Educational disparities have a direct correlation with health disparities. Health behaviors and lifestyles can be improved with health literacy. The more knowledge you have about health, the more aware you’ll be of the consequences of not taking care of it.
Lower-income families often live in resource-poor school districts, and they lack the resources available to upper-income families for making investments in early childhood enrichment activities. (Woolf et. Al., 2015).
These obstacles continue to pester for years, affecting the well-being and health of people from rural areas, individuals suffering from poverty, racial and ethnic groups, members of the LGBTQ+, and people living with a disability. Eliminating these obstacles as much as possible and improving accessibility for all is one of the best ways to advance health care. Health care advancement is not only proven through modalities and treatments made with modern technology but this advancement could also mean health equity for all.
Addressing the Inequities in Healthcare this 2022-2023
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is the biggest health insurance provider in the United States. One of CMS’ priorities this 2022-2023 is to address the different forms of Inequities in health care.
Here are some of its highlights:
- Data collection will be expanded to better understand each unique individual’s needs.
A person’s demographic information will be included in the data collection. This information can be beneficial in improving inclusivity and ensuring that everyone gets to receive the best quality of health care there is.
- Assessing the gaps between CMS programs and policies to improve the overall quality of operations.
CMS is focused on making actionable and sustainable solutions to bridge the gap in health care by assessing current policies and programs and ensuring that inadequacies are addressed properly.
- Increasing workforce capacities to be able to accommodate more people from all walks of life.
Healthcare providers must work closely with caregivers, families, and individuals to best understand the health disparities occurring in a specific area. Community-based services are also considered to be able to support the community in underserved areas.
- Improving language access and services attuned to meet the needs of people across cultures.
Effective communication is key to achieving the best outcome in healthcare. Tailoring healthcare services to fit a particular group or community affects the quality of services that they receive.
- Expanding healthcare accessibility most especially to people with disabilities, know healthcare gaps that they are facing, and be able to address them accordingly.
As people with disabilities tend to have a higher risk of developing chronic diseases, CMS plans to make sure that health emergencies and disaster preparedness must be disability-inclusive. By breaking down barriers, health care accessibility will hopefully be within reach.
One of CMS’ commitments is to prioritize health equity in all of its efforts, with the ultimate objective of providing everyone with equal access to health care and eradicating inequities. One of the best ways to promote health equity is to look within, reassess current plans and policies, and develop plans to further improve outcomes so that everyone has equal access to health opportunities, health literacy, and inclusivity. The process of eliminating health inequities may take a lifetime, but even just one step in the right way counts as progress. The future of health care lies in health equity for all.
REFERENCES:
- Implicit bias and racial disparities in health care. (n.d.). Retrieved August 1, 2022, from https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/racial-disparities-in-health-care/
- Woolf SH, Aron L, Dubay L, Simon SM, Zimmerman E, Luk KX. Urban Institute and Virginia Commonwealth University Center on Society and Health. 2015. How are income and wealth linked to health and longevity?
- CMS Framework for Health Equity. CMS. (n.d.). Retrieved August 2, 2022, from https://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Agency-Information/OMH/equity-initiatives/framework-for-health-equity
