Genetic Discrimination In Health Care

Superior Essays
Race and ethnicity has little effect of genetic makeup, but it has a great effect on the level of care that an individual receives. There are many studies indicating that minority groups receive more expensive and lower quality health care. Some studies take a look at whether the site of care affects the quality of care among minority groups and how different lifestyle factors could also influence health. Using race in the health care system creates unnecessary discrimination. This discrimination leads to adverse health effects for minority populations. The change in care could be a result of the doctor-patient relationship differing when treating minority groups.

The most preventable cause of death in the United States is smoking.
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Vaccination rates for HPV are relatively low. Receiving the recommendation from a doctor to get vaccinated, strongly correlates to receiving the vaccine (Ylitalo, Lee, Mehta, 2013). The vaccination rate among informed patients is relatively the same for all races and ethnicities in the Unites States. This indicates that race and ethnicity does not impact the willingness to receive the vaccination in this study. However, non-Hispanic whites were 10% more likely to receive the recommendation. Adjustments were made to decrease the chance of separate factors affecting the results; non-Hispanic blacks were the only racial group that was significantly less likely to be recommended by a doctor (Ylitalo, 2013). In order to decrease the number of infected people, doctors need to recommend the HPV vaccine at higher rates. By not receiving the vaccination recommendation, the level of health care minority groups receive is decreased. While this is only one example, differences in vaccination recommendations may lead to other disparities that are present across the health care system, including end of life …show more content…
A study conducted in the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care centers to see where the health disparities were occurring. Disparities are attributed to either location or care within the same hospital. Of the 13 of 20 quality of care points measured African Americans and whites received the same level of care. Adjustments for socioeconomic status did not affect the results (Samuel, Landrum, McNeil, Bozeman, Williams, & Keating, 2014). This study showed that it is possible to lessen the racial disparities in health care. VA is a private health care system so using this information and applying it to the public health care system proves to be challenging. Further research needs to be completed to show the effect this could have when used in the public

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