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.