Health Disparities (SOC)

00:01 Alright. Let's talk about our health care system and maybe some of the disparities that we have to embrace and address.

00:09 So, does our system work perfectly? And is everybody getting equal access, access to care? And the answer is no.

00:16 So, health care disparity includes population-specific differences in the presence of disease, health outcomes and quality of health care across different social groups. So, in English, we're basically saying, within our population, we have certain subgroups that don't have the same equal access to healthcare. Why is that, and how do we pull this apart? So, this disparity is seen across the following social factors.

00:39 I think the most obvious and clear is that the SES, the socioeconomic status of individuals clearly impacts quality and access to care.

00:48 So, as socioeconomic status increases access and quality of health care increases as well.

00:55 So, if you live in an affluent area, you're going to have a nicer hospitals, you're going to have the better doctors, you're going to have better equipment, you're going to have more medicine available, too.

01:04 So, all of these things are obviously going to improve your health outcomes.

01:10 Now, when you look at, when you look at some of the not as affluent areas and some of the suburbs or ghettos, you might not have the same access to health care.

01:23 You won't have the same quality of doctors.

01:25 And so that disproportionate density of health care resources will directly impact health.

01:33 You also see that individuals who live in the lower socioeconomic status areas have differences in terms of diet.

01:43 So, we know that poor living conditions, poor diet are also direct factors impacting overall health.

01:50 So, when you look at some of the lower SES areas, we have things called food deserts and this refers to the fact that you find almost exclusively fast food, prepackaged food, and you have very few markets and grocery stores where you can get fresh produce, fresh meats, and you can actually cook your food. The end result is you're getting a lower quality food laced with fatty acids, laced with cholesterol, salt, all these things that directly impact your health.

02:20 Leading to things like cardiovascular issues, strokes, so many other problems. Now let's take a look at some of the jobs individuals who work, who live in the SES areas have to take on.

02:33 So those that are lower on that social scale, they take on more dangerous jobs or jobs that put their health at risk.

02:39 So they're working in some of the factories, coal mines, a lot of areas where you can have injury or death, especially if they're working in these areas long term, you see long term chronic disease.

02:51 You also can see those individuals who are lower on the SES scale cannot afford extended health care programs and plans.

03:00 So if you work at a factory or a shift job or a fast food restaurant, they're not necessarily offering you extended health care benefits that you see in some of the professional jobs that you would have if you're higher on the SES scale.

03:11 And so they can't afford that extended treatment.

03:15 If something is offered by the city or the state, that's great.

03:17 But if it requires some additional medicine or additional equipment, a procedure that they have to pay out of pocket, they can't afford it.

03:25 That obviously, again, will impact overall health outcomes.

03:28 Now, we also understand that race plays a role and that visible minorities like African-Americans, Hispanics and natives.

03:34 So obviously we're taking sort of a US perspective here.

03:37 They tend to have higher morbidity, mortality and illness rates.

03:41 So morbidity refers to occurrence of different diseases and mortality is actual death.

03:48 So these same individuals have poor access to care or lower quality of care.

03:51 So we've mentioned those already.

03:54 So they kind of go hand in hand.

03:56 A lot of these individuals that are visible, minorities tend to be lower on the SES scale and therefore all the points that we just made apply.

04:04 So less access to care, poor quality of care, which then again equals less, less positive health outcomes.

04:15 Gender. Gender plays a role.

04:17 Men seem to have a lower self-report of illness and are less apt to use the health resources.

04:24 So it's not that they're not getting as sick.

04:26 They just tend to not report their illness.

04:29 We think of, you know, the macho factor and guys tend to not want to run to the doctor every 20 minutes. I'm not saying that women are complainers, but women are more, they're actually brighter than we are.

04:40 And they say, well, if there's something wrong, I'm going to get this checked out.

04:42 If there's if there's pain, if there's an issue, I am going to use the health resources and men. There's this gender role of trying to be macho and just saying it's not a big deal. I'll deal with it.

04:52 So there's a disproportionate use of these resources towards dealing with some of these disorders.

04:58 Now, if we look at the medical research, we also understand there's some disproportionate allocation of resources as well.

05:05 A lot of the resource, resources in terms of research and guidance around an illness and the treatments are around men.

05:12 So an example are looking at things like cancer and a lot of the research and a lot of the media and educational resources revolve around men in cancer.

05:24 And we're now understanding that cancer rates are just as high and sometimes even higher in women, things like cardiac issues.

05:33 Again, we automatically assume, and we have this sort of stereotype of a cardiac patient being a big overweight guy eating hamburgers and hot dogs.

05:42 And that's why they had the issue when in reality, we actually understanding that a lot of women have extremely high rates that match or sometimes surpass that we're seeing in men. And right now, these two, having cancer and cardiac events are the number one killers in women.

05:59 So, gender then also creates this polarity in terms of actual access to care and health outcomes.