Health Policy and Advocacy for Women and Minority Groups in the U.S Healthcare System

This presentation focuses on the need for policy analysis to improve access to health services for women and minority groups in the U.S healthcare system. It evaluates existing policies and identifies gaps for quality improvement.

C
INDIANA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
NURSING/HSAD 614
HEALTH POLICY AND ADVOCACY
SUMMER 2019
YOUR NAME:

Key
Points:
Abstract:
 Over the last few years,
there has been an
increase in the
prevalence of chronic
illness disorders such as
Diabetes Type II, Obesity,
Breast Cancer and
Cardiovascular diseases.
 This suggests there is a
need to conduct policy
analysis so as to improve
access to health services
for a better standard of
living for the women and
the minority group.
The research intends to evaluate the existing policies within the
U.S Healthcare System so as to improve standards of care for
women and the minority groups within the nation. The U.S
healthcare policies that have been developed for women and the
minority groups primarily focus on improving accessibility to
care, increasing health coverage, affordability and utilization of
support services within the complete population base. However, it
is pivotal to analyze the policies in order to identify gaps and
adapt measures for quality improvement.

Advocacy or Policy Problem
in Rural Area:
Statement of the problems/description:
The evidence base suggests that a number of initiatives have been taken in order to
improve access to healthcare services for women and the minority population groups
across the United STATES. However, the state of welfare has remained uncertain in terms
of access and quality to care services. This suggests that there is a need to evaluate the
existing policies in order to determine the degree of effectiveness.

Advocacy or Policy Problem
in Rural Area:
Why you/your group selected the problem:
The group selected to focus on the problem comprises of women and the minority groups.
The rationale for the same includes increased prevalence of fatal disorders such as breast
cancer , cervical cancer, cardiovascular diseases and arthritis. Also, lack of appropriate
access to care facilities and coverage have been identified as a key problem in these
groups of population.

Advocacy or Policy:
 The policy studies in this context includes the U.S health policy that concerns the
wellbeing of the women and the minority groups.
 The U.S healthcare policies concerning healthcare and wellness aim at improving
access to healthcare services and assuring an affordable range of care services so as
to support consumers.

Background:
The US healthcare policies provide a uniform coverage to the systems through a
multiplayer health coverage fund
In accordance to a research report published in 2014, it was suggested that 48% of the
fund was funded privately and 28% was funded from households and private business
enterprises. The expenditure of the federal government was estimated to be 28% and
that of local government was estimated to be 17% (Oliveira et al., 2019).
89.6% of the U.S citizens have healthcare coverage and66% are insured privately.
Approximately, 36.5% depend on the government for coverage (Oliveira et al., 2019).
A total of 77.5% coverage has been accounted to women’s welfare but in reality 2.9
million people lack any health care coverage.

Prevalence:
The evidence base suggests that United Nations spends a total of 16.4% GDP for health
coverage
This can be considered equivalent to 8.9% per citizen which is highest among the other
nations of the world (Makary & Daniel, 2016).
This reflects that the government is concerned about the health and wellbeing of the
citizens
However, care has been prioritized for the aged population and the wellbeing for the
women and the minority groups has remained overlooked.
Women and minority groups that include Hispanic and Asian families have substantially
lower coverage by almost 64.5% (Williams & Collins, 2016).

Consequences of the
problem:
Lack of appropriate policies and coverage have led to the increase of a number of
disorders such as pregnancy, Type II Diabetes, Obesity, sexually transmitted diseases and
ovarian cancer
There has been a significant rise in reports pertaining to domestic violence.
There is an increased need to incorporate reforms that would help in promoting positive
healthcare outcomes among the targeted audience.

Scope and duration of
problem:
The scope of the problem is to conduct policy analysis so as to develop effective
measures in order to ensure health and wellness of the women and the minority groups.
This would help in improving access to care and at the same time alleviate the standard
of living for the mentioned population groups.
The research data from the previous years suggest a hike in the rate of violence and
crimes against ethnic minority groups that include, African Americans, Hispanics, Middle
East community members and Asians (Rubinsak et al., 2019) Also, the prevalence of
vascular diseases, Diabetes and Cancer has risen among women and ethnic minority
groups over the past 5 years. This suggests there is a need to put on better efforts to
address the scenario.

Disease trends among the
women and minority group:
Fig: Disease prevalence in US women
(Source: Falkner & Cossrow, 2014)
Fig: Disease trend among ethnic
minority
(Source: Hutchinson & Shin, 2014)

Framework for advocacy of
policy issue:
The framework that would be used to promote wellbeing for the U.S citizens would
include the Health Equity Policy Analysis Framework. The Policy framework focuses on
the three integral aspects that comprise of implementation of a change within the
policy, promoting a change within the institutional level and building a capacity for the
community.

Theoretical underpinning of
the policy:

The Equity Framework:

Impact of advocacy on policy
issue:
The advocacy on the policy issue would help in prioritizing health care problems for women
and the minority groups. This would assist policy makers to take steps and improvise the
existing healthcare policies so as to disseminate wellness and promote good heath of the
targeted audience. In addition to this, the policy changes would improve focus on
institutional focus so as to support increased access to healthcare and induce
empowerment so as to build stronger interaction between the vulnerable group and the
care providers.

Impact of advocacy on
stakeholders:
The stakeholders involved with the policy analysis would comprise of the healthcare
providers, healthcare organizations and the delivery systems. In addition to this, it would
also include the care professionals and the policy framing body of professionals. The change
would ensure improved care provision and measures for treating illness disorders such as
cervical cancers, breast cancers and chronic illness disorders such as Diabetes Type II and
Obesity that are on the rise,

Advocacy or policy plan:
 The framework would help to identify and evaluate the existing health inequalities
between the ethnic minority group and the women based at United States
 The policy analysis would help to identify the barriers to access healthcare facilities
 It would also help in setting priority goals which would allow scope of improvement
 It would help in proper identification of resources that would help in bridging the existing
gap and alleviate the standard of living for the identified audience.

Evaluation Methods:
 Evaluation of the evidence base has revealed that the U.S department of Health and
Women Service and the Office of Minority Health has successfully provided natives of
Alaska and Indian settlements with better healthcare coverage.
 In addition to this, Affordable healthcare coverage Act has improved healthcare
accessibility for 27.6 million people
 Continuous monitoring of disease prevalence ration within the targeted group and
comparison with the evidence base can help in determining the effectiveness of the
policy amendment.

Summary:
Therefore, to summarise it can be said that the U.S healthcare system invests a significant
proportion for the healthcare benefit of the citizens. The existing policies have reduced the
reported cases of chronic illness disorders such as cardiovascular disorders and breast
cancers but has led to the increased prevalence of newer disorders and ailments such as
obesity, Type II Diabetes and mental illness disorders to name a few. Therefore, there is an
increasing need to review the existing policies in order to promote welfare and alleviate
quality of living for the targeted audience.

References:
Falkner, B., & Cossrow, N. D. (2014). Prevalence of metabolic syndrome and obesity-associated
hypertension in the racial ethnic minorities of the United States. Current hypertension reports, 16(7),
449.
Hutchinson, R. N., & Shin, S. (2014). Systematic review of health disparities for cardiovascular diseases
and associated factors among American Indian and Alaska Native populations. PloS one, 9(1), e80973.
Kazmerski, T., McCauley, H. L., Jones, K., Borrero, S., Silverman, J. G., Decker, M. R., ... & Miller, E. (2015).
Use of reproductive and sexual health services among female family planning clinic clients exposed to
partner violence and reproductive coercion. Maternal and child health journal, 19(7), 1490-1496.
Makary, M. A., & Daniel, M. (2016). Medical error—the third leading cause of death in the US. Bmj, 353,
i2139.
McDowell, M. J., Hughto, J. M., & Reisner, S. L. (2019). Correction to: Risk and protective factors for mental
health morbidity in a community sample of female-to-male trans-masculine adults. BMC
psychiatry, 19(1), 45.
Oliveira, D. F., Ma, Y., Woodruff, T. K., & Uzzi, B. (2019). Comparison of National Institutes of Health Grant
Amounts to First-Time Male and Female Principal Investigators. Jama, 321(9), 898-900.
Rubinsak, L. A., Christianson, M. S., Akers, A., Carter, J., Kaunitz, A. M., & Temkin, S. M. (2019).
Reproductive health care across the lifecourse of the female cancer patient. Supportive Care in
Cancer, 27(1), 23-32.
Williams, D. R., & Collins, C. (2016). Racial residential segregation: a fundamental cause of racial

THANK YOU!!