A community is said to attain health equity if every member enjoys an impartial opportunity of getting the services needed to maintain a state of health. In the United States (U.S.), the Latino population has been identified as the minority group, which lack access to healthcare services. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the factors that impede the Latino population to access healthcare services in the United States (U.S.) because it leads to health disparities in this community.
Barriers
The Latino population confronts persistent barriers to accessing timely and appropriate healthcare services. These barriers are categorized into three groups; accessibility, affordability and acceptability barriers. Accessibility barriers include lack of documentation related to immigration status and health insurance (Ortega et al. 2018). These are major barriers to healthcare in the US. The ability to obtain health insurance is dictated by employment status, immigration status and type of employment. Being undocumented affects the ability of Latinos to access government sponsored programs like Medicaid (Ai et al. 2012). When these people visit healthcare providers, the first thing they are asked is their Social Security number. This makes the situation more complicated because they have to start explaining their migratory status. It even discourages the Latinos from seeking healthcare at all.
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Affordability barriers include limited income, expensive healthcare costs, lack of health insurance coverage and unemployment (Ortega et al. 2018). These financial barriers make Latinos afraid of seeking healthcare services because they have to part with huge sums of money. This is especially worsened by the fact that these individuals lack insurance coverage. Failure to go to hospital renders this population much sicker hence, they can work less. And for them to pay bills, they must work. Therefore, in the US, the Latinos are living a difficult life because they have to think about their health all the time.
Acceptability barriers include cultural factors, Latinos’ health seeking behaviors and discrimination. In the US healthcare system, discrimination founded on immigration, HIV status, ethnicity, language and race discourage the health seeking behaviors of the Latino population (Ai et al. 2012). When Latinos visit a healthcare provider, they are asked where they come from and they are also treated differently. Just because these people are Latinos does not imply they do not understand English. Most of the time the Latinos are treated slower, especially during communication. The Latinos associate Western medicine with negative cultural stigma, which discourages them from seeking preventative healthcare, services like screening and adherence to treatment. This results in self-medication and traditional healing practices among this population. In this culture, using homemade, naturalistic and traditional remedies is highly common (Ai et al. 2012).
Recommendations
Most Latinos are unaware of how they can effectively access the healthcare system and numerous healthcare funding options. It is important to introduce more such options including creating affordable and innovative healthcare products, consumer-targeted health savings accounts and tax incentives for small employers. Also, incentives must be provided for the Latinos to purchase health coverage (Ai et al. 2012). When
Also, the Latino population may benefit from increased enrollment of eligible members in the federally sponsored healthcare programs (Ortega et al. 2018). The creation of an expanded capacity of community clinics will help provide low-cost or free healthcare in strategic locations with uninsured minority and high Latino populations. Tax incentives aimed at preventing malpractice insurance costs will make it much affordable for healthcare practitioners to volunteer or work in medically underserved areas.
A mix of multimedia communications will help reach the Latinos with the desperately required healthcare education (Ai et al. 2012). In the US, Spanish language radio and television can reach numerous Spanish-speaking households. Interactive technologies and the news media equally present huge potential. Latinos can also become highly informed healthcare consumers through coordinated outreach campaigns via community and faith-based organizations, Latino social networks and healthcare professionals. These strategies, used concurrently, lay the foundation for successfully improving healthcare access among the Latinos.
References
Ai, A. L., Appel, H. B., Huang, B., & Lee, K. (August 01, 2012). Overall Health and Healthcare Utilization Among Latino American Women in the United States. Journal of Women's Health, 21, 8, 878-885. file:///C:/Users/wise/Downloads/latino%20health%20equity%20(1).pdf
Ortega, A. N., McKenna, R. M., Chen, J., Alcalá, H. E., Langellier, B. A., & Roby, D. H. (January 01, 2018). Insurance Coverage and Well-Child Visits Improved for Youth Under the Affordable Care Act, but Latino Youth Still Lag Behind. Academic Pediatrics, 18, 1, 35-42.file:///C:/Users/wise/Downloads/health%20insurance%20in%20latino%20after%20ACA%20(1).pdf
