Social Cultural and Political Influence in Healthcare Delivery Research Paper

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Social, Cultural, And Political Influence in Healthcare Delivery

Social, cultural, and political inequalities are detrimental to the health and healthcare system of the U.S. This is because the U.S. is one of the most multicultural, overpopulated, diverse and undergoing rapid economic growth. The federal government has embarked on efforts geared at addressing unsustainable costs of health care in the U.S. With the leadership of the current president, Barrack Obama, initiatives of containing health care costs will evaluate and explore strategies to contain the growing costs of health care based on a system-wide while enhancing the value and quality of health care (Ubokudom, 2012). The apparent system of health care is rife with opportunities of minimizing waste, delivering coordinated, effective care, and improving well-being and health of all Americans. The government in collaboration with care providers must prioritize cost effective containment strategies with the greatest possibility for political success and non-partisan support.

This literature review highlights the key drivers of the rising health care costs in the United States. It serves as an analytic framework on the containment of health care costs. Healthcare spending results from the utilization of health care services and the price of those services. The underlying social, cultural, and political factors of use and cost, which drive the growth of healthcare spending in the United States, are highlighted in this review. The analysis of these drivers is helpful in the selection and prioritization of the proposals enhancing the quality and efficiency of the U.S. health care framework (Spector & Spector, 2009). As this review has established, social, cultural, and political drivers are overlapping and complex. These factors can be attacked and curtailed directly through viable public policies but other cultural-based demographics like the ageing population cannot. The main challenge arises from the lack of solutions to address a single factor. Therefore, strategies aimed at addressing one factor should range for the unintended impacts arising from factor interaction. In this manner, policy medications must address multiple factors to achieve the desired effect.

Given the magnitude, interconnectedness, and the complexity of the social, cultural, and political factors, the U.S. will not have a single sufficient initiative. The Affordable Care Act and the Patient Protection Act call for a series of structural and regulatory reforms to the healthcare insurance sector. The pilot and demonstration programs encouraging the creation of coordinated payment systems and care delivery must accompany this. Experts in the industry project that such reforms would reduce the number of uninsured Americans, help regulate costs and promote higher quality care (Henderson, 2007). In the face of strained federal and state resources and mounting debt, delivery of health care services remains uncertain. In this context, further action is fundamental in slowing down the rise in health care costs and guarantee sustainability of the country's health care framework. Multitude policy reforms, created with a broad non-partisan perspective are integral in addressing the challenges of health care cost growth.

Unequal Distribution of Health Care Resources in the U.S.

Social insurance resources in America, however, not satisfactory are abundant. There has been a significant development in healthcare resources and health identified labor in the most recent decade. The amount of health care facilities developed from 12,285 private care facilities in 1991 to 18,218 in 20007 (Spector & Spector, 2009). In 2000, the nation had 1.25 million doctors and 1.2 million nurses. That makes as one specialist for each 1800 individuals. Assuming that different frameworks incorporating Indigenous System of homeopathic prescription and Medicine are acknowledged, there is one doctor for every 800 individuals. It is estimated that 15,000 new graduate specialists and 5,000 postgraduate specialists are prepared each year. The nation has a yearly pharmaceutical generation of around 260 billion and a vast extent of these drugs is for export (Crinson, 2009).

To a casual eyewitness this resembles an exceptional extent. However, unequal dispersion of resources comes to be evident in a further study. The degree of health care facility beds to populace in rural territories is fifteen times lower than that for urban ranges. The proportion of specialists to populace in rural zones is approximately six times lower than that in the urban populace. Each per capita use of public health is seven times lower in rural regions contrasted with government health using for urban zones. Although the expenditure on medical services is six percent of the country's GDP, the state expenditure is just 0.9% of the aggregate using (Armstrong, 2011).

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Individuals utilizing their own assets use the rest of it. Subsequently just 17% of all health expenditure in the nation is borne by the state, and 82% comes as direct payments by the individuals (DeNisco & Barker, 2013). This makes the U.S. public health framework terribly deficient and under-financed.

Only five different nations globally are more terrible than the U.S. In relation to public health expenditure. As an aftereffect of this inauspicious and unequal spending on public health, the foundation of health framework itself is getting incapable. The most vital and peripheral unit of America's public health foundation is an essential health Centre. In recent studies, it was perceived that at least 38% of all facilities have all the crucial labor and just 31% have all the vital supplies with just 3% of faculties having 80% of all basic inputs (Lundy & Janes, 2009).

The lessening on public health spending and the developing disparities in health care and health is taking its toll on the socially disadvantaged and marginalized populace. The Infant Mortality Rate in the poorest twenty percent of the populace is 2.5 times higher than that in the wealthiest twenty-six percent of the populace (Wilkerson, 2008). As it were, a child conceived in a poor family is two and half times more likely to die during the earliest stage compared to a child from a well off family. A child in low-living standard's economic segment is four times likely to die before adolescence compared to a child in the high living standards group. Children conceived in the tribal clash areas are one and half times less averse to die soon after the fifth birthday than other groups. Female children are 1.5 times less likely to die before arriving at their fifth birthday as contrasted with their male counterparts. The female to male ratios for youngsters are quickly declining, from 945 young girls for every 1000 young men in 1991 to only 927 young girls for every 1000 young men in 2012 (Henderson, 2007). Children underneath three years of age in scheduled tribes are twice as liable to be malnourished than children from white families.

An individual from the poorest quintile of the populace, regardless of additional health issues, is six times more averse to be hospitalized compared to individuals from the wealthy class. This implies that the poor are unable to access and afford hospitalization in an exceptionally vast extent of disease scenes when it is needed. The delivery of mothers from the poorest class of the populace is over six times less inclined to serve by a restorative professional than the delivery well off mothers from the wealthiest one. A tribal mother (black) is over twelve times unlikely to be assisted by a medically trained individual during delivery (Spector & Spector, 2009). A woman of color is one and a half times less averse to suffer malnutrition consequences as contrasted with women from other social classes (white). These figures self-speaking and carry to the fore unequal resource distribution and the impact of it on public health parameters. This unequal resource distribution is further complimented by the ineptitude of universal access to care due to multiple access challenges.

Access challenges in Health Care

Universal healthcare access is a norm in most nations. In the U.S., pre-existing disparities in health care provisions is vastly enhanced by challenges in accessing health care. The access challenges are due to gender distance, socio-political distance, or cultural differences.

The issue of cultural difference is significant in an expansive nation like America with the restricted method of correspondence. The direct impact of difference of a given populace from a primary health care on the youth mortality is well documented. It has been indicated that the impact of challenging access to health centers is more affirmed for mothers with less education. Likewise, studies state that distance from private health facilities does not influence the health parameters, but the distance from public health centers do. The individuals who live in rural territories with poor transportation infrastructures are regularly not incorporated in the scope of health frameworks (DeNisco & Barker, 2013).

Motivators for nurses and doctors to relocate to rural areas are ineffective and insufficient. Furnishing and re-supply of rural health facilities is challenging and inadequate because of poor supply dissuades individuals from utilizing the existing facilities. Maternal mortality is plainly much higher in remote areas as trained paramedical attends to minimal.....

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