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Health Disparities in Ethnic Minorities

In America, as of 2012, the Hispanics and Latinos constituted of approximately 17percent of the total population with majority of its population distributed between the States of New Mexico (42.1%) and California (32. 4%) (Williams et al 2016). This paper aims at addressing the Hispanic current health status and health promotion practices. As the paper suggest, the Health Belief Model would be the best to support culturally competent health promotion among Hispanics.

Hispanics’ current health status

 Today, the Hispanic population is growing at alarming rates, precisely the youth, making it a vital demographic trend impacting on the American health status. Williams et al (2016) argues that the health status and health behaviors among Hispanics vary by generation status and the diverse nation-origin groups present in America. Recent research indicate that foreign-born Hispanics possess improved health indicators compared to U.S. born Hispanics. Further, among those foreign-born Hispanics, their health status varies depending on the measure of acculturation to American culture. According to Williams et al (2016), among national-origin Hispanic groups, the Puerto Rican origin appears to have the worse health status indicators ranging from higher mortality rate to decreased favorable birth outcomes. Contrary, Hispanics of Mexican and South American origin exhibit advantageous health indicators regardless of low socioeconomic status.

Research on health and health behaviors among Hispanics indicate that there is a high prevalence of obesity and overweight among Hispanic adults which increases the risks of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and hypertension. Actually, recent trends of the adult Hispanics indicate an increase in the burdens related to high rates of stroke, cardiovascular disease, blindness, kidney disease and other problems linked to obesity, diabetes and hypertension (Williams et al, 2016). Additionally, Hispanic youth and children are prone to obesity and its complications attributed to the poor health behaviors, dietary and lack of exercises. Williams et al (2016) confirms that the U.S. health outcomes is largely influenced by the gap between health care among the whites and the minority ethnic groups. The economically disadvantaged groups such as the Latinos and African-American experience poor access to quality care as compared to the white Americans. Recent reports indicate a 30-40pecent poor health outcomes among the Hispanics which has resulted to increased mortality, illness and nearly $60 billion loss in productivity yearly. 

The health disparities and nutritional challenges

Among the Hispanics, health disparities are affected by these major components: health inequity; health inequality and health literacy. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), health inequity is defined as “avoided inequalities in health between groups…attributed to socioeconomic differences that range from work, age to origin (WHO, 2017). For instance, among the Hispanic adults, the limited access to quality and equitable health care is due to costs resulting from poor education that is below high school diploma, food insecurity and poor housing. Health inequalities, defined as the difference in health status among populations, among Hispanics is exhibited in the high prevalence of health conditions such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes. Hispanics comparison to the whites is as follows: obesity (32% and 28% respectively) and diabetes (8% and 7% respectively) (WHO, 2017). Health literacy is the measure of an individual’s ability to understand basic health information required to make suitable health decisions. Among Hispanics adults, Health literacy is low with approximately 4percent of the population being proficient and more than 41percent being below basic health literacy (WHO, 2017). The nutritional challenges among Latinos is largely influenced by their degree of acculturation to the American culture of practicing healthier behaviors. However, their poor socioeconomic status limits them from accessing healthier diets and lifestyles which has attributed to the increased prevalence of obesity and overweight among Hispanic populations (Perez, 2016) Also, among low income Hispanic families, preparing healthy meals such as vegetables becomes an additional challenge which has led to the increase obesity prevalence.

Barriers of health

According to Guntzviller (2017), Hispanics limited access to quality care is attributed to barriers that include: financial barriers like low personal income and lack of health insurance cover; structural barriers like absence of nearby health facilities and poor geographic access to health providers and personal barriers like cultural beliefs, health literacy and language barriers. Among other factors, cost has always been a major challenge to access of care among Hispanics. Reports indicate high uninsured rates among Hispanics compared to whites, especially among foreign-born Hispanics and Puerto Ricans. Additionally, language becomes a barrier among Spanish-speaking patients which impacts on the quality and care outcomes.as a result some end up relying on traditional medications and folk medicine. Cross-culture miscommunication is also a major barrier that limit Hispanics from using medical care services. Guntzviller (2017) confirms an under- use of health and mental services among Hispanics, evident to their low number of physician visits, hospitalization and use of preventive health services.

Health promotional activities practices by Hispanics

Health promotion practices among Hispanics focus on addressing their top three health concerns, that is, obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Educational approaches are widely used creating awareness among the Hispanic population on the causes, effects and prevention of these diseases. Also educational approaches aim at encouraging and increasing access to preventable health care, promoting healthier diets, exercise and lifestyle (Arellano-Morales,2016).  Thanks to the evolution of technology and internet, the Hispanics have managed to establish social-media driven health interventions for impacting health behavior changes across its population in America.

Health promotion approach among Hispanics

Diabetes being the leading health issue among Hispanic population, an effective health promotion approach would be an education-based material in Spanish specific that would convey the causes, prevention and health outcomes of diabetes (Eldredge et al, 2016). This would be effective as it would address the language and education barrier that limits pre-diabetic care among Hispanics. The approach’s primary goal would be to reduce the risk though promotion of improved diets and physical exercises among children and adults. The secondary goal would be to address the current impact of the disease as well as promoting healthier behaviors. Lastly, the tertiary prevention would incorporate management of the disease through provision of programs like diabetes screening that will help recognize and manage the disease at an earlier stage.

Cultural beliefs and cultural model to consider when creating a care plan

When designing effective health promotion plans for Hispanics, many cultural relevance dimensions ought to be considered which can be achieved by applying community-specific strategies whereby you familiarized yourself with the targeted community’s culture. Therefore, among the Hispanics, cultural feature worth considering include: specific cultural aspects such as personalismo, respecto and familism; the level of acculturation, ethnic identity and family coherence (Hollingshead, 2016).  The Health Belief Model, a widely used guideline in health promotion programs, focuses on understanding an individual’s or population’s  beliefs about health conditions that influence their health behaviors. The model achieves this by assessing a populations belief on threats of a disease, perceived severity, potential benefits of prevention, cues to action and self-efficacy (Skinner, 2015). The Health Belief Model would be the best to support culturally competent health promotion among Hispanics because its centered on understanding the populations beliefs and perception of health conditions and outcomes.

In conclusion, the Latinos/Hispanics being the fastest growing minority population in America, need immediate health promotion interventions to address their current health status and health behaviors. The Health Belief Model would be the best to support culturally competent health promotion among Hispanics because its centered on understanding the populations beliefs and perception of health conditions and outcomes.