Chapter 10 Community Health and Minorities

     First and foremost, it's interesting to know that America is the world's first truly multiracial democracy. The majority of the U.S. are white, non-latino Americans (67%), and the remaining 33% are racial and ethnic minorities. It seems there have been a lot of push toward equality in healthcare for racial and ethnic minorities. There was a National effort formed by Clinton to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities. It's purpose was to enhance efforts in (1) preventing disease, (2) promoting health, and (3) delivering care to racial and ethnic minority communities.
     There were also brief rules made in the 1980s for race and ethnic standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting. This was a way to better operationalize race and ethnicity, though it was important to note that categories of race are more of a social category than biological, self-reported data regarding race and ethnicity may be unreliable because of the varied cultures and heritages and multiples races, and also many nonfederal health data systems do not collect self-reported race or ethnicity data.
     There was a lot of data in chapter ten on each individual race and ethnic group of individuals. One fact that seemed to stick out was the fact that the poverty rate of American Indians and Alaska Natives is 25.3%, which is the highest among all racial and ethnic groups.
     Refugees, being the new population in the country, put a lot of strain on public and private health services. Some problems including lack of jobs, new competition, strain on budgets for school and health, further burden on the human, health, and mental health services, and cultural barriers. Furthermore, the diseases are more prevalent because they can be seen across the racial and ethnic groups. These can be noted as infant mortality, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS.
     In conclusion, culture is a vital factor in both how community health professionals deliver services and how community members respond to community health programs. The communities in the U.S. need empowerment and equality for it's members and the minorities as well. Hopefully in the future, by 2050, when minorities are nearly half of the population, we will find a better balance.