The American Medical Association should increase the amount of healthcare programs within lower income communities because this is a discriminatory inequity that causes an increase in infant mortality rates.
As previously noted, the American medical system has been around since as early as 1735 and it is a system that is vital to the lives of all individuals no matter your age, race, gender, religion, creed, etc. This system has a long history of mistreatment amongst African American individuals, dating as early as slavery. I will be focusing on the topic of infant mortality in my essay, and a major way that we can decrease the amount of infant deaths in the black community is by placing more vital institutions in needy communities. It is important to educate ourselves on the current impacts of such systemic issues and their significance to our lives, our ancestors lives, and the lives of those to follow. I think it is important to reference the racial and socioeconomic disparities that black Americans face. These disparities were instilled in the foundations of America has been actively placed into vital institutions, such as the healthcare system, affecting the development and growth of minority populations.
I am motivated enough to discuss this topic because as a black woman who has encountered numerous eye-changing experiences, I always felt as though my duty and purpose in life was to advocate for those who face similar struggles that I do. Being “woke” about these important civic issues is a major part of my identity and I love sharing the knowledge I obtain when researching these topics. These issues drive me to be an advocate for change and be the support system not many of my African American counterparts have. Black Americans lack a lot in the United States, and I feel as though bringing awareness to issues such as this is the first step to major change. The most common misconceptions that many people hold about the subject include: black people (in this case women) are less sensitive to pain, white people are default humans, and race has no role in determining the rates of infant mortality.
My 3 specific research questions are:
- What is infant mortality and why is the rate so high in AA babies compared to other races?
- What impact does this high mortality rate have?
- How can an increase in healthcare programs benefit rates, inhabitants of lower income communities and society as a whole?
The library book source I found is titled Eliminating Healthcare Disparities in America. This book promises to be a very useful source for this project because it highlights ways we can eliminate the disparities in order to ensure that people get equal access to these vital systems. The first section discusses the underlying causes of disparities which ties into my first research question, the second section discusses current disparities in health care which ties into my second question, and the last three sections discuss approaches and recommendations for correcting the problem which ties into my last question. I believe that this book will be very informative in terms of policy since it outputs suggestions to eliminate disparities in healthcare.