National Minority Health Month – A Time to Refocus
April is National Minority Health Month, first established in 2001 and recognized by Congress one year later by a Concurrent Resolution, which reinforced the federal government's commitment to reducing health disparities. I recently wrote about ageism and the impacts it can have on both access and the treatment of older Americans. Those of us who are 65 or older make up about 17% of the population, which certainly makes us a minority. There are many other identified minorities and the very reason that there is a Minority Health Month is the fact that there are biases and real basic health differences that have an impact on care. I think it’s important to talk about how these biases affect care and how we can combat them, while also recognizing that there are some basic health differences that are also important to understand. No matter what your political or personal attitude is, recognizing that these biases and differences really do affect how our healthcare is administered magnifies the importance of Minority Health Month.
As I mentioned in my ageism blog - an age bias is real. I wrote that it would be great if we never had any diagnosis that included the word age. The same can be said for minority groups, it would be great if the bias that exists in both treatment and socioeconomic status could be eliminated, but it will take more than this blog to solve that problem. We’ve been trying to overcome these biases for a long time, and our progress is slow and uneven. Over the years, our lawmakers have applied different levels of attention to eliminating the inequalities that exist for many groups. The political pendulum has swung back and forth on how much energy we put into solving this problem, but addressing it benefits everyone. There are different levels and different types of biases that affect different minorities, but the most powerful influence is a patient’s socioeconomic status.
Socioeconomic status (SES) is a way of describing a person’s social and economic position in society and is driven by factors like income, education, and occupation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state that SES is a fundamental driver of health disparities, influencing life expectancy, chronic disease, and mortality. As our lawmakers develop policies, they need to realize a low SES leads to:
1. Higher Rates of Chronic Disease
2. Shorter Life Expectancy
3. Worse Mental Health Outcomes
4. Reduced Access to Healthcare
5. Higher Exposure to Environmental Risks
6. Food Insecurity and Poor Nutrition
7. Higher Rates of Injury and Disability
8. Lower Health Literacy
9. Compounded Effects with Race, Age, and Geography
It is crucial that policymakers factor in the real impact of SES. I am encouraged by the current administration’s push to Make America Healthy Again. It will be important that healthier food is available to everyone, at every economic level. Healthier people equal lower healthcare costs and increased productivity. The long-term benefits could be significant.
While personal and symptomatic biases impact the health outcomes of minority groups, it is also important to recognize that there are also differences at the biological level that should not be ignored and are important to disease diagnosis and treatment. I’ve often written about the importance of personalized medicine. As we make scientific discoveries and increase our understanding of the human body, we identify the differences in each of us and how diseases affect people depending on their own individual makeup. As we create databases documenting more and more of the variables of healthcare, we can increase the number of categories and better personalize treatments. It’s why I have high hopes that artificial intelligence can have a huge impact on bringing diagnosis and care to the personal level. This is a big reason why I sometimes rail against government proposals and policies that embrace a one size fits all approach. It just goes against the more efficient and more accurate approach of personalized medicine. I think a focus on individual treatment is an important way to approach how best we can provide healthcare to our minority populations. Recognizing that there are fundamental differences in biology that can affect how people are diagnosed and treated should not be downplayed, it is important.
As we consider National Minority Health Month, we need to encourage our lawmakers to recognize that there are biases that affect how our country’s minority groups are cared for. I sincerely hope that the current reduction in disparity programs doesn’t discourage us from finding ways to reduce biases that exist or slow down our march toward personalized care which will have an outsized positive impact on our minority patients.
Best, Thair