Impacts of Race on Health Policy System Assignment

Running Head: IMPACTS OF RACE ON HEALTH POLICY SYSTEM
Impacts of Race on Health Policy System
Name
Institutional Affiliation

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IMPACTS OF RACE ON HEALTH POLICY SYSTEM
Impacts of Race on Health Policy System
Introduction
Everyone is entitled to quality and good health care services from any medical facility.
Your cultural background should not deter you from accessing medical facilities and getting the
required treatment. Race can be defined as the grouping of individuals based on their cultural,
genetic, physical, social or ancestral traits. Racism is the discrimination, harassment or biases of
one race by another who views themselves as superior to the others. Racism in health care leads
to differences in access to quality healthcare.
The race has been one of the major problems in Canada that have led to poor health care
and those affected have difficulties in accessing quality health care because of the diverse
cultural backgrounds that they are coming from (Betancourt et al., 2016). It is the responsibility
of the government to introduce health policies that are inclusive and considerate for every
Canadian citizen.
Good health policy system help in improving health care for every individual irrespective
of your race and cultural background in health policy system; race is a contributory factor to the
success and effectiveness of the system (Tang, & Browne, 2008). A health policy system that
involves racism leads to poor quality services, inequality in access to health care, dissatisfied
patients and increase in a number of patients.
Racism has led to an increased number of patients resorting to other alternatives of health
care like the tradition health care for the various illnesses. This has also lead to the rise of
mortality in patients who are having chronic illnesses and are from the minority communities
because of the discrimination and lack of adequate health care. The introduction of inclusive

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health care policies will help in reducing the mortality rate and improving health care among all
Canadian citizens.
Racism in Canada's health care policy system
The negative beliefs about race and ethinicity are deeply ingrained in the culture of
Canada. This popular culture is often associated with devaluing the backs and other non-white
residents of Canada. Several research studies have provided evidence that suggests televisions
play an important role in establishing this culture of racism. Television shows most often portray
black people in a negative way and this has been linked to high levels of racial prejudice. On the
other hand, widely read newspapers and books frequently pair the word “black” with words like
poor, lazy, violent, and dangerous.
While the word white is often linked to other words such as, progressive, wealthy,
educated and successful. These negative messages are adopted by the people unconsciously and
they start developing a bias that results in discrimination against the black people and leads to
racial inequality.
Healthcare professionals, clinicians and administrators of the health policy system are no
exception (Alimezelli et al., 2014). Racism in Canada has long existed with the majority of the
minority group consisting blacks have resettled in Quebec. Racism in Canada has exceeded
many other countries, the minority groups have not fully been recognized by the government
(Hutchison, levesque, Strumpf, & Coyle, 2011). However much the government today is trying
to change the perception and reducing the level of discrimination of the minority groups within
its territory. Results from previous studies have reported that biased treatment recommendations
exist in the healthcare facilities for black patients, and this has been linked to greater amount of
implicit bias among physicians and clinicians.

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This often leads to poor quality of communication between the healthcare professionals
and their clients and results in patient dissatisfaction. The patients who face racial and ethnic
discrimination in hospital settings often give low ratings to the quality of care they received and
their poor encounters with the doctors. The minority groups in Canada have long suffered
because of the poor and limited health facilities in the regions where the minority groups live.
This, however, has led to the rise of mortality in the minority groups especially those with
chronic illness and also maternal mortality.
Several causes of health inequities caused by racism are having less access to social
resources such as education, inadequate economic resources, poor housing, engaging in health
behaviors that are risky, exposure to environment hazards, stress caused by racism in an
environment one lives in, social traumas such as sexual abuse and spousal abuse, programs such
as screening being underutilized and having no trust in the healthcare systems (Prus, Tfaily, &
Lin, 2010).
Living in poor neighbourhoods increases the exposure to toxic chemicals and restricts
access to healthy foods (Beiser & Hou, 2014). This increases the chances of adverse health
outcomes among the minorities. Evidences suggest that significant disparities exist in the health
outcomes of the racialized people owing to the fact that they do not get equal access to medical
care facilities, such as, pediatric wards and veteran’s hospitals, when compared to the majority of
white people (Kim et al., 2013).
Therefore, practice of racism in healthcare institutions, bias among caregivers,
stereotyping attitude and stigma are the major contributing factors to the incidence of racial
inequalities in the healthcares system (Dovidio et al., 2017).

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This results in a shift in the focus from offering holistic care services to all patients
regardless of their race or ethnic backgrounds. The government has the responsibility of playing
a major role in reducing racism in Canada by making good policies that does not only favor the
"white" people in getting efficient health care but instead come up with policies that ensures that
access to primary healthcare is everyone's right irrespective of your race, tribe, color, and
cultural background, it should be diversified (Papadopoulos, 2006).
Healthcare organizations also have an equal responsibility of ensuring equality in the
healthcare facilities. The healthcare organizations can introduce programs that are cultural
diversity oriented with the aims of training health practitioners about cultural diversity and
competence. This program should focus their attention on the marginalized groups and how they
can get quality health care. The healthcare organizations should recruit persons from the minority
groups in the health care system to create a free and conducive environment for the minority
groups to feel comfortable and safe in the healthcare facilities (Kirmayer & Brass, 2016).
Most of the trained healthcare practitioners from minority groups often go back to their
regions to offer health care services in the available health facilities and this is another way of
promoting adequate health care for the minority groups. Ontario Human Right Commission
(OHRC) has put in place policies that protect the minority groups from being oppressed and
denied equal right to access medical facilities and other government public resources (Deber, &
Mah, 2014).
The Canadian Community Health Survey (2016) provided data that supported the less
likelihood of visible minorities in the Canadian community to create contacts with their specialist
physicians or to get admitted in hospitals following an episode of illness, when compared to the
Whites. Inequalities are consistently found between the Whites and racialized people with regard

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to hospital admissions, visits to a specialist, and screening tests for cancer, when the former were
controlled for income, sex, language, and duration of residence in Canada.
An adjustment of health status and socio-demographic features will reduce the existing
disparities and increase the likelihood of the minorities to contact their general practitioners and
utilize healthcare services. Evidences suggest that there is a profound lack of customary
collection of health data that are related to race and ethnicity of the people living in Canada
(Siddiqi et al., 2013). Furthermore, the unavailability of race based data in the Canadian cancer
registries creates difficulties in ascertaining the impacts of race and ethnic history on the
incidence of breast cancer and its survival in Canada.
In addition, data reveal that the national population surveys under-represent the presence
of immigrants in the population. This also creates difficulties for the minorities to adequately
access the exisitig healthcare services (Wang & Hu, 2013).
Public and policymakers' responsibility
The public and policymakers have the responsibility to take up actions in order to
eliminate the issue of racism in the healthcare system. Such actions involve creating and
increasing public awareness on the issue of racism and its effects on the quality and accessibility
of healthcare (Giesbrecht, & Crooks, 2016). The awareness can be increased through the support
of policies and procedures that address racism, the establishment of community, groups and
alliance programs that fight the issue of racism. Increase in the representation of the radicalized
groups in the decision-making processes as well as in the organization's structure will help in
eliminating the racism in Canada (Clavier, & Leeuw, 2013).
The public and policymakers should strife in implementing and enforcing policies and
procedures that are free from racism. The policymakers should emphasise on the need for

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collecting standardized data related to ethnicity, race and primary language of all people who are
entitled to use the healthcare system. The importance of standardized data collection lies in the
fact that it will help the policy makers and the caregivers to identify and eliminate ethnic and
racial inequities in healthcare (Cahill & Makadon, 2014). Adequate data on the race and ethnicity
of the patients and their care providers allow provisions to on patient and provider race and
ethnicity would allow researchers to unravel the factors that contribute to inequities. This will
also assist them in formulating better healthcare plans that meets the cultural needs of the
minorities (Wang, 2014).
A routine monitoring of their performances will facilitate in easy identification of
discriminatory practices, ensure accountability, help in evaluation of the different therapeutic
strategies and will eventually improve patient outcomes. The recruitment and retaining of staff
from the minority groups will help in building a culture of diversity in the health, implementation
of programs that involve training the practitioners on anti-discriminatory and culturally diverse
health care.
The availability of interpreters in the facilities will also help eliminate racism in the
healthcare system. Support the establishment of acts and policies that address the racism in
health care system and also allocate sufficient funds in support of racism research, in conducting
discussions with the stakeholders on eradicating the racism in the country (Westhues, & Wharf,
2012).
The policymakers should ensure the patients exercise their rights to access proper
healthcare through the introduction of a complaint box to air their complaints as well as to pro-
actively respond to racism. A consideration to form a committee that addresses on racial equality
will also help in dealing with the racism problem in the Canadians health policy system (Diehr et

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al., 2017). The policymakers should adopt cultural competence, which will provide them the
ability to deliver healthcare services that meets the cultural, social, and linguistic needs of the
minorities (Rajaram & Bockrath, 2014). Lack of cultural competence will increase the risk of
patients of receiving poor quality care and experiencing negative health outcomes.
Some of the common strategies that can be adopted by the policy makers for developing a
culturally competent healthcare environment include the following:
 Arranging for interpreter services
 Recruiting and retaining staff belonging to the minorities
 Creating training programs to increase cultural knowledge, awareness and skills
 Including the family and community members in decision making
 Incorporating culture-specific attitudes in different health promotion tools
 Locating clinics in geographical regions that can be easily accessed by the minority
groups.
Certain guidelines must be adopted by the policymakers to eliminate the healthcare
disparities.
 These policies should focus on enhancing the attitudes of the healthcare professionals in
regards to accepting that it is their responsibility to understand the cultural aspects of
illness and health of all residents of Canada
 Recognizing the personal biases that exist against people belonging to different cultures
and ethnic backgrounds
 Respecting and tolerating cultural differences among all patients (Dimick & Ryan, 2014).
 The guidelines should increase the willingness of caregivers to make provisions for easily
accessible clinical settings.

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Setting up accreditation standards will also benefit the minorities as it will enhance the skills
of medical students to understand the diverse cultures that exist in the society and will further
help them to perceive the different forms of illness and respond to them accordingly (Laymon et
al., 2015).
Summary
The issue of racism, in Canada, cannot be ignored as it deeply affects the health care
system. It is a major issue that should be addressed by all the stakeholders who include the
government, the healthcare providers, and organizations, the consumers' and the general public.
All the stakeholders should unite in implementing and enforcing policies and procedures that
upholds equality and fights to eliminate racism in the health care systems. This will lead to
appropriate address of all existing racial biases in healthcare delivery.

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