Question

write a two page paper

select a health disparity issue that effects minority groups, excluding African Americans. focus on

1. contributing factors based on reported research

2. identify organisation that address the issue and include it mission and summary of the organization's success in addressing the health disparity

3. provide a brief summary of a recent national or international media report or peer reviewed journal publication related to the issue.

4. provide you own personal and objective reflection about health disparity.

5. describe ways religion and spirituality might help to shape health disparity  

Answer 1

Gender disparity :To have a better understanding of gender-based health differences and to implement policies that will reduce health disparities, we first must recognize that the distribution of various health conditions is driven by more than biological factors alone. Policymakers should focus on reducing systematic health differences between men and women that arise from inequitable distribution of resources, hindered access to health services, education, and other avoidable social and economic factors. The first step in developing effective policies is obtaining reasonable estimates of the problem.

Cultural norms and practices,Son preference,Female genital mutilation,Violence and abuse, lack of education poverty,healthcare system,structural gender opression, race and ethnicity,socioeconomic status ,environmental injustice and gender bias in clinical trials are some of the factors leading to Gender health disparity.

The Fourth World Conference on Women asserts that men and women share the same right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. However, women are disadvantaged due to social, cultural, political and economic factors that directly influence their health and impede their access to health-related information and care.In the 2008 World Health Report, the World Health Organization stressed that strategies to improve women's health must take full account of the underlying determinants of health, particularly gender inequality. Additionally, specific socioeconomic and cultural barriers that hamper women in protecting and improving their health must also be addressed.Gender mainstreaming and Female Empowerment were the target of the organization .Gender mainstreaming is defined by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1997 as:"Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate aim is to achieve gender equality."

Most gender based health differences in South Asia can be traced back to the same underlying factors: decreasing fecundity and consequently a preference for sons, spread of the practice of dowry across most groups in the region, and the marginalisation of women in agriculture. We believe that all of these factors are tied to the perceived lack of economic utility of women. Current societal circumstances make the cost of having a daughter so high that families may be unwilling to invest scarce resources for their benefit. Similarly, the scarcity of resources causes society to undervalue women, who, as a rule, are not making a vis: ible economic contribution. Attempts to address gender disparities must take into account these underlying issues. However, education and improved economic circumstances alone are likely to be insufficient to change practices that have become culturally, socially, and in some cases legally, enshrined. Programmes and policies aimed at reducing differences at the level of education and employment between men and women must enshrine gender equity as a core value. In this respect Sri Lanka might be considered a role model for the rest of South Asia—minimal gender differences in education and employment levels in Sri Lanka lead to a life expectancy and healthy life expectancy equivalent to those of industrialised countries.In this sociocultural context, the violation of fundamental human rights, and especially reproductive rights of women, plays an important part in perpetuating gender inequity. It is therefore imperative that a rights based approach be taken across all developmental activities in South Asian countries.(role of gender in health disparity:the south Asian Context2004).

Women represent about 51% of the U.S. population yet only make up ~20% of enrolled patients in clinical trials.We can establish health equity.Health equity is the value underlying a commitment to reduce and ultimately eliminate health disparities. It is explicitly mentioned in the Healthy People 2020objectives. Health equity means social justice with respect to health and reflects the ethical and human rights concerns articulated previously. Health equity means striving to equalize opportunities to be healthy. In accord with the other ethical principles of beneficence (doing good) and nonmalfeasance (doing no harm), equity requires concerted effort to achieve more rapid improvements among those who were worse off to start, within an overall strategy to improve everyone's health. Closing health gaps by worsening advantaged groups health is not a way to achieve equity. Reductions in health disparities (by improving the health of the socially disadvantaged) are the metric by which progress toward health equity is measured.

Religion and spirituality are often conflated and this has led to difficulty in defining each construct accurately. For example, Reinert and Koenig highlight that there is no “gold standard” when it comes to defining spirituality, pointing to the increase in concept analyses of spirituality in the nursing literature. Lindeman and colleagues argue that in order to obtain reliable results about spirituality and its outcomes, a parsimonious and unambiguous theoretical definition and assessment method is needed. Koenig has offered definitions of each term, defining religion as involving “beliefs, practices and rituals related to the transcendent…an organized system of beliefs, practices and symbols designed to facilitate closeness to the transcendent and foster an understanding of one’s relationship and responsibility to others in living together as a community.” Spirituality is defined as a “connection to that which is sacred, the transcendent… intimately connected to the supernatural, the mystical and to organized religion.” With this definition, it appears that spirituality captures much of the complexity of a belief in a higher power, and may also include religious practices. According to the APA Handbook of Psychology, Religion and Spirituality (Pargament et al 2013), religion and spirituality may both be used when considering the full range of beliefs and practices that may include both secular and institutional practices, which facilitate the search for the sacred. Reinert and Koenig suggest that using spirituality as a broader term may lend itself to spiritual care in a clinical setting. As such, spirituality will be used in this paper to refer to the religiosity/spirituality connection.A growing awareness of patients’ spiritual practices has led to more consideration of the ways in which spirituality may impact patient care. A 2012 Gallup Poll found that 69% of American adults consider themselves to be very or moderately religious (Newport, 2012). Studies indicate patients want their physicians to have knowledge of their spiritual beliefs to facilitate better understanding of them as individuals, as well as help physicians understand patients’ decision-making (McCord et al 2004). In a survey of family practice patients, McCord et al (2004) found that 83% of respondents indicated a desire for their physicians to ask about spiritual beliefs, particularly in instances of life threatening illness, serious medical conditions and loss of loved ones, with the majority of those respondents citing the importance of the physician’s ability to encourage hope, give medical advice and change medical treatment.