Health Inequalities: Causes, Impacts and Strategies to Overcome

This essay discusses the causes and impacts of health inequalities, including disparities based on race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. It also explores strategies to overcome these inequalities, such as improving access to healthcare services and addressing social determinants of health.

Case Study Response

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
DESCRIPTION................................................................................................................................4
DISCUSSION..................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Health inequalities refers to unequal and unfair distribution of health services due to
which differences in health status of disadvantaged people or other groups of people can be seen.
Health inequality among people leads to cause high mortality rate in deprived areas due to their
inability to access the medical facilities in case of chronic diseases like lung cancer, heart
problems, lower respiratory disease (McCartney and et. al., 2019). Main risk factors of these
chronic diseases are obesity and smoking. Although, UK government has played a vital role in
creating awareness amongst population regarding smoking and chewing tobacco which leads to
decline the prevalence of smokers in England. But it has been reported that people used to
belong from more deprived area has not quit smoking than the people used to live in less
deprived areas. Health inequality creates a gap in health life expectancy. Life expectancy of
white people are recorded to be comparatively more than the population of BAME (Black, Asian
and minority ethnic) background. Health inequalities in child health are evaluated and analysed
by taking a record on low birth weight of the babies, level of dental decay, and infant mortality
rates in children of the more deprived group of people. Mental health and well-being of
disadvantaged people also seems to be highly affected by the unequal and unfair distribution of
health services among nation.
DESCRIPTION
Differences in health condition of the white people and people from BAME background
is a issue of high concern in England. People from black and south-Asian background are at
high risk of mortality and developing chronic disease. People from minority ethnic groups are
statistically more likely to live in areas which are socially deprived (Nuru-Jeter and et. al., 2018).
These people are unable to access the facilities that are easily and available and accessible to
population of white people. Minority groups have less income and lack of facilities makes it
harder fir them to have green spaces, eating healthy food, going gym to exercise. It is the
responsibility of UK government to take some major steps and provide all facilities and access to
these minor group people. After developing a chronic disease, ability to access support services
also impacted which reduce the quality of life. Healthy lifestyle can be maintained by eating
good and healthy food, by taking important health preventions like vaccines and doses for
children, by visiting doctors and physicians at regular basis like in case of pregnancy. But all

these facilities are unavailable at most deprived areas due to which health of new born child and
mother are highly effected and comparatively low than white counterparts.
The main causes of health inequality is unequal distribution of power, money, and
position within the nation (Smith and Anderson, 2018). People with wealth and power are easily
accessible to health facilities and given preference by the hospital administration which is a
wrong practice and contribute negatively to impact the health conditions. During pandemic, the
situations were comparatively got worst everywhere. People from black and south-Asian
backgrounds were at high risk of dying from Covid-19 than white people. At many regions, it
has been observed that hospital staff from white community were not agree to take
responsibilities and provide medical services to black people because of they used to believe
black people are strong enough to bear the viral disease due to their black and thick skin texture.
All these ideologies among people has worsen the situation and many people were left to die
without even try to treat and save their lives. Social class, poverty, availability of education, etc.
highly influence the quality of life. Many studies demonstrate that evaluation of social class can
help to predict the health status of individual. In comparison to higher class, the lower classes
have shorter life span, a poor health status, and more likely to suffer from physical disability
(Diderichsen and et. al., 2018). Disparity in health conditions seems to impact the health of rest
of the society for instance, consequences of drug misuse and alcohol consumption, spread of
infectious disease, or violent or criminal activities happen in a society. Health disparities can be
manifested in no. of ways like; the rate of mental-ill health, life expectancy, long term health
conditions, and avoidable mortality.
It also has been observed that population of minority groups are not that literate and
hence are not able to improve the quality of life by itself. These people prefer to live at the
outskirts area of the urban area and that is why proper service of ambulance sometimes also not
able to reach there at the time of emergency. The women of minority groups generally have lack
of information about the practices one should perform at the time of pregnancy and also unable
to access healthy food. Thus it impacts the health and weight of the newly born child.
Health of an individual is determined by the conditions in which one born, grow, live
and work. Right to health deals with the right concern to physical, social , and mental well-being
of a person. It not includes the right to health services but also the factors that help individual to
spend and live a good and satisfied life; known as social determinants (Ponsford and et. al.,

2018). Some of the social determinants of health are: housing, education, access to health
services, family income, employment, social status, childhood experience, communities, etc.
Some PANEL principles are taken into consideration while taking a human rights based
approach. It includes participation, accountability, non discrimination, empowerment, legality,
etc. Participation refers to aware people about their rights and take participation in decision-
making. In order to support people for participation , some policies and practices may help them
to make conscious about their health. Accountability relates to the people and organisation
should realise their human rights and access the benefits of the services provided to them by the
governmental bodies. Empowerment refers to the groups of people or community should have
the power to get complete understandings about their rights and claim them (Chouhan and
Nazroo, 2020). Legality confers that all decisions should be according to the legal standards of
human rights.
DISCUSSION
Health inequalities can be reduced by taking some strategies into consideration like; use
of right indicators to measure health inequalities, analyse the proper and effective methods to
reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes of the population. It is essential to
understand and enhance knowledge about the services which can address inequalities.
Leadership is about take responsibilities, volunteer and encourage people to play their respective
role in reducing health inequalities and improving health of the population (Cash-Gibson and
Benach, 2019). Health equality can be achieved by taking cost effective actions by using
interventions, by sharing knowledge regarding the promotion of good health and encourage
people towards healthy lifestyle. Government and responsible private organisations should
evaluate and assess the impact of implemented policies on health and try to improve the services
if required. Right to health provide framework which can be used to frame the public health
initiatives. The human rights associated with health promotes the policies which are positive and
progressive. It ensure that every individual is provided with the opportunity to access the
possible highest standard of health. It involves the assurance of fair and equal distribution of
social determinants of health. It include deep evaluation about allocation of the resources to
ensure effective implementation of policy. It is important to ensure that services must be planned
and delivered according to the proportion of need as well ensure availability, accessibility,
quality and appropriateness of the services.

Health disparity can be defined by considering the race and ethnicity, sexuality identity
and orientation, gender, disability status, and geographic location. In order to overcome the issue
of health inequality many policy makers decided to reduce the discrepancy by providing equal
opportunity to access the healthcare services among socioeconomic classes and improve the
quality of the services between the private and public sectors. Health system tends to increase the
approach and avail the services to geographically isolated areas and make policies to reduce out-
of-pocket expenditure. Heath disparity due to geographical location is a challenging task to
overcome to policy makers and service providers. The people of disadvantaged community does
not prefer to love in urban localities due to which it become difficult to provide them medical
services on time. Health disparity due to gender is a issue of major concern within the nations
(Crear-Perry and et. al., 2021). Cultural practices and norms are the main reasons behind gender
disparity in health which even continue to persist in some areas of the globe. These cultural
norms are highly responsible in influencing the behaviour and role of men and women followed
in the society. Cruel cultural traditions like breast ironing and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
are the examples of the wrong practices that contributed a lot in implementing wrong ideology
regarding the women in the society. But many legislations and policies have been implemented
which has banned such practices effectively and aware people about the right to health for the
women community. Awareness has been reached to the level of education through which women
are guided to protect their rights and make them strong enough to raise voice against such
practices and can take a stand. Such traditional practices highly impacts the health of women.
Loss of blood, intense pain, complications during child birth, cyst formation, urethral damage.
Social consequences of FGM are: pain during sex, reduced sexual satisfaction and sexual desire.
This unequal behaviour on the basis of gender or sex puts women at higher risk of developing
mental and physical illness. Mental illness involves anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, shock,
feeling of isolation, post traumatic stress disorder, etc.
Racial and ethnic healthcare inequalities are the results of differences in geography,
difficulty in communication between patient and healthcare professionals, cultural barrier, lack
of access to providers, lack of access to health coverage, provider stereotyping. People of
minority groups tend to receive poor healthcare services in comparison to those of non-minority
groups (Bambra and et. al., 2020). Some key findings and recommendations have been discussed
to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities include the provision of providing affordable health

insurance to all legal residents. It has been made compulsory to provide high-quality health care
by professionals and hospital administration to all patients irrespective of their skin colour, caste,
religion, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, race, socioeconomic status,
cultural background, disability, age, etc. Healthcare professionals and physicians must be
sensitive related to the culture of the patient. Ensure easy access to patient-centred medical care
to all racial and ethnic minority patients.
CONCLUSION
From the discussion made in above essay it has been concluded that every individual has
equal rights to health. Health inequality is a major concern to take seriously and it is important
make policies and implement them effectively to protect the human rights of health. In this
report, the discussions has made related to the issues faced by the people who live in more
deprived areas. Governmental bodies has implemented many policies and regulations to bring
health equality in the society. Women community has experienced a lot since history and health
inequality is one of them. But now many female leaders raised their voice and demanded
regulations to protect their rights and make others aware about the consequences of breaking the
laws. From this essay, one can easily understand the major factor of health inequality is unequal
distribution of health services and inability access the medical facilities. The discussion has
covered the topic of social determinants that determined the factors on basis of which partiality
and discrimination has been done in the society.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Bambra, C., Riordan, R., Ford, J. and Matthews, F., 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic and health
inequalities. J Epidemiol Community Health, 74(11), pp.964-968.
Cash-Gibson, L. and Benach, J., 2019. Health inequalities research capacity in the UK:
preliminary findings from a realist explanatory case study. The Lancet, 394, p.S29.
Chouhan, K. and Nazroo, J., 2020. Health inequalities. Ethnicity, Race and Inequality in the UK-
State of the Nation. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, pp.73-92.
Crear-Perry, J., Correa-de-Araujo, R., Lewis Johnson, T., McLemore, M.R., Neilson, E. and
Wallace, M., 2021. Social and structural determinants of health inequities in maternal
health. Journal of women's health, 30(2), pp.230-235.
Diderichsen, F., Hallqvist, J. and Whitehead, M., 2019. Differential vulnerability and
susceptibility: how to make use of recent development in our understanding of mediation
and interaction to tackle health inequalities. International Journal of Epidemiology, 48(1),
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McCartney, G., Popham, F., McMaster, R. and Cumbers, A., 2019. Defining health and health
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Nuru-Jeter, A.M., Michaels, E.K., Thomas, M.D., Reeves, A.N., Thorpe Jr, R.J. and LaVeist,
T.A., 2018. Relative roles of race versus socioeconomic position in studies of health
inequalities: a matter of interpretation. Annual review of public health.
Ponsford, R., Allen, E., Campbell, R., Elbourne, D., Hadley, A., Lohan, M., Melendez-Torres,
G.J., Mercer, C.H., Morris, S., Young, H. and Bonell, C., 2018. Study protocol for the
optimisation, feasibility testing and pilot cluster randomised trial of Positive Choices: a
school-based social marketing intervention to promote sexual health, prevent unintended
teenage pregnancies and address health inequalities in England. Pilot and feasibility
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Shawky, S., 2018. Measuring geographic and wealth inequalities in health distribution as tools
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Smith, K.E. and Anderson, R., 2018. Understanding lay perspectives on socioeconomic health
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