Minority_Health

Policy Topic Search Charisse Hicks March7,2011 Minority Health is an issue in the world that need to be addressed. Minorities include African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, Indians, and Pacific Islanders. An individual’s racial or ethnic background is related to health status, health insurance coverage, health care access and the quality of care that they receive. The office of Minority Health (OMH) was created to improve theses areas of concern for the minorities. This office has different programs and resources to educate them on their health issues. The health status of most minority groups are most of the time stated as fair to poor. That should not be the case if these groups was given what was needed to make and keep them healthy. Health People 2010 have a goal to eliminate health disparities which are gaps in the health status of minority groups compared with majority population. To eliminate the health disparities standardized data would have to be collected to identify the high risk populations correctly. Income status has a lot to do with the health of the minorities. The races with the lower income have more health issues than the majority population. This is because the majority has the insurance and income to get the treatment and preventive services that are needed to keep them healthy. Not all minorities are in a bad situation. There is a percentage that has the income and the insurance to receive any kind of treatment that is needed. Stakeholders are a person, group, organization, or system who affects or can be affected by an organizations action. Minorities and uninsured people would be a stakeholder. There are organizations that help with the resources for minority health. The uninsured has a problem with receiving treatment when it is needed. Most of the time the minorities are the ones that are uninsured. It would benefit the minorities if the government made it where everyone is covered with insurance. In conclusion, Minority health is very important and need to be resolved. The Office of Minority Health was created to help these populations with the education and resources. Health status, health insurance coverage, health care access, and the quality of care are all areas of concern when it comes to the minority population. References www.kaiseredu.org/Topics/MinorityHealth.aspx www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov