Diversity in Healthcare

Diversity in Healthcare

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Diversity in Healthcare

Overview of Diversity in Healthcare

The paper “Diversity in Healthcare,” takes a closer look at the interconnectedness between the culture, diversity and me as an individual in purview of healthcare delivery. It will explore how despite the efforts being made towards healthcare equity, racial and ethnic discrimination towards Black women in the United States persists and it is still a major health concern. It will look into the interdisciplinary approaches that determine how the discrimination towards Black women affects the modern societies in both personal and professional contexts.  It will also delve deeper into the cultural and social influences on the development of personal identity, recommend strategies to overcome the obstacles and use of effective communication skills to ensure cultural responsiveness in personal and professional contexts. In its first part, the paper examines how the core topic of cultural and ethnic diversity in healthcare impacts the Black women followed by making of a strong thesis statement. The second part critically analyzes my engagement with the topic to analyze opportunities, obstacles and factors that can impact the societal conversations. Lastly, it will reflect on my part why diversity is important in healthcare and a value addition to the effective healthcare ecosystem. 

Introduction

The healthcare model has been witnessing persistent challenges with regards to cultural competency, ethnic, gender and racial disparities today (Nair & Adetayo, 2019). There are many social determinants of health (SDH) which are the factors outside the traditional healthcare setting such as housing quality, access to education, to healthy food, to name a few that determine the healthcare delivery. In purview of the SDH, the ethnic and racial minorities face discrimination and have unfavorable SDH that leads to the lack of access to healthcare by these minority groups (Nair & Adetayo, 2019). Despite being the efforts made to ensure healthcare equity, Black women in the United States still face health disparities (Chinn et al., 2021). 

Health Disparities Among Black Women

Black women constitute about 7% of the population of the US and 13.6% of all the women living in the US. Although, with 36.1 years as an average age and even being younger than the overall age of the US women (39.6 years), they still have a higher prevalence of medical conditions like stroke, cardiac diseases, obesity, stress, maternal morbidities, to name a few (Chinn et al., 2021). Black women have been experiencing more mortality, shorter life expectancies and high maternal mortality rates as compared to the other US women (Chinn et al., 2021). They are also burdened by chronic conditions like obesity, cardiovascular diseases and anemia.  Throughout their course of life, Black women experience discrimination and structural inequities both within and outside the health systems and it is not merely an outcome of single incidence but has Historical context associated with discrimination in healthcare (Chinn et al., 2021). 

Historical and Socioeconomic Factors

Peeking into the Historical lens, the socio-cultural practices have a significant impact on the healthcare practices. For Black women, no discussion related to health equity is complete without mentioning the racism and discrimination that Black people have been facing at both institutional and individual levels (Chinn et al., 2021). Time and again, the research has been documenting that there has been systematic oppression, bias and discriminatory treatment against Black women that has accumulated to affect the health of Black women in the United States (Chinn et al., 2021). The history dates back to the 1950s when the gynecology emerged as a subject and the Black women were subjected to unethical experimentation even without their consent. The health inequality for Black women has been engraved in the slavery and since the time they have been used as a means of economic gain, abused and disregarded for their reproductive health. Socio-economically also, Black women have been experiencing more unemployment, an earnings of $5500 lesser per year and higher poverty rates than their White counterparts (Chinn et al., 2021). On top of it, they are more likely the head of their household as compared to their White counterparts where they have to support more dependents with lesser resources (Chinn et al., 2021). Even the houses they live in are racially segregated and bear lesser property values than the White women’s houses. Besides these practices, there exists mortgage lending discrimination where the Black women are denied of being lent mortgage to communities and races that are supposed to be inferior which results in residential segregation (Chinn et al., 2021). In contrast to the Black Women, White women are highly benefited politically, socioeconomically as well as culturally in the White dominated society (Chinn et al., 2021). Such social conditions are a cause for Black women to be discriminated also from the health point of view since they form the Social Determinants of Health (Chinn et al., 2021). These evidences prove that the social determinants of health for Black women in the United States are highly frail enough to give them the health as equitable as their White counterparts.

Privilege, Social Justice, and the Single Story

Peggy McIntosh (2012) from her TEDx talk also suggests that in the United States, White have been so much privileged that those people lying below the social justice line are bullied, teased and are considered as discarded people whereas those above the social justice line are highly privileged. Unless the White privileged group weaken their own privileged system, it is difficult to break the barrier of social justice in the society. In another TED talk by Adichie (2009), “The danger of a single story,” a powerful message has been sent across the listeners that by only listening to the one side story of any race, group or ethnicity makes a biased opinion that becomes dangerous for the practitioners of diversity and inclusion. It is, therefore, important to understanding both the viewpoints of a story, seeing it holistically and then making any opinion for or against the character or a group or ethnicity of even for a country. 

Communication and Barriers to Diversity

Besides the dominance of White over the Black in the United States, there are some other key challenges that need to be addressed as they hinder the Black women to seek proper healthcare experiences in the US. Race and ethnicity not only contribute to a divided socio-cultural but also hinder them to seek treatment from the doctors or physicians. Cooper et al. (2009) cite in their research that race and ethnicity also contribute to the communication barrier between the patient-physician relationships. The communication plays a pivotal role in breaking the barrier between what the patient requires and what the treatment should be. Unless the communication barrier is bridged, the right treatment cannot be availed by the patient. Celik et al. (2008) in their research cite the key challenges or barriers that are a hurdle in the implementation in practicing diversity. Lacking knowledge of diversity, poor communication, organizational constraints, political climate are some of these barriers that need to be ward off before the diversity can be practiced (Celik et al., 2008). To combat these barriers of social injustice and strengthen the social determinants of health, training of the healthcare professionals, more and more recruitment of the Black women in healthcare profession as well as the awareness raising campaigns of the Black for their Human rights should be done. 

Thesis Statement

In light of resilience in the face of diversity, black women are still marginalized in accessing quality care, which creates health issues such as heart diseases and stress, calling for training and education to help understand the trends and opportunities for prevention and intervention of discrimination. 

Critical Analysis

Inclusive Leadership, Training, and Diversity

The issue of Diversity in Healthcare requires constructive collaboration or the team effort to combat the challenges faced by the Black women in the wake of effective healthcare delivery. In the times of divisiveness, health policy and the management research should embrace inclusive leadership to engage diversity meaningfully (Bradley, 2020). Training is one of the most effective ways to combat the issue of diversity by helping the hospital staff to understand the effectiveness of healthcare and practice better patient outcomes for Black women (Bradley, 2020). 

Different Perspectives on Diversity

There are two school of thoughts that have come as a challenge to practice diversity, one, the Difference and two, The Diversity Delusion (Bradley, 2020). The first part “Difference” suggests that “diversity or trumps the ability” in particular circumstances (Bradley, 2020). The conditions in which practicing diversity seems difficult include assumptions that the problem is difficult to tackle, the people already have good backgrounds to tackle the problems, they can assist each other in problem solving and the people are drawn from a large cohort of problem solvers (Bradley, 2020). The author of Diversity Delusion fears that the excellence and diversity have a competition and that diversity often leads to sacrifice in achieving performance (Bradley, 2020). The main thrust missing in the two schools of thoughts is that the presence of diversity alone does not predict the performance rather it depends on how diversity is engaged to predict the performance of any group.  In contrast with these old schools of thoughts, the contemporary authors like Professor Amy Edmondson at the Harvard Business School and other authors emphasize upon psychological safety, managing paradox in groups and inclusive leadership who are of the view that diversity attracts different groups for opinions to resurface, are openly discussed without any fears and leads to innovation and productivity in work (Bradley, 2020).

Innovation and Productivity Through Diversity

From the above piece of information, it is evident that the innovation and productivity are required to solve the complex healthcare problems that can come by practicing diversity in the healthcare. Thus, the positive elements that are the driving forces to practice diversity in healthcare are innovation and productivity. To make this vision of innovation a reality, the healthcare settings must a) include staff members from different staff members from different disciplines across different hierarchies in the organization, b) encourage an authentic participation from the employees and c) use precise and distinct patterns to manage the conflicts that may arise during the course of time (Bradley, 2020). Together these practices will help in giving an innovative and productive healthcare outcome. 

Benefits of Diversity in Healthcare

Practicing diversity in the work culture in healthcare settings reaps many benefits. Not only does it ensure better care for diverse population, better opportunities and better recruitment avenues for the cross-cultural employees including Black women, but it also enhances group motivation, problem solving and better patient outcomes (Provo College, 2022).  

Obstacles and Barriers to Diversity

To practice diversity in the healthcare settings, there occur potential obstacles such as diversity challenges across healthcare groups such as stereotypical caricature for other’s profession (Monrouxe & Bloomfield, 2021). Besides this, healthcare professional groups, learning processes and research approaches are other areas where the diversity practices lead to differences in opinions, disparities among groups and it becomes challenging for the different healthcare management settings to tackle diversity (Monrouxe & Bloomfield, 2021). However, if the training is given right at the initial levels of schooling, it can be delved deeper within the groups to stay connected and accept people from different walks of life and work together in a united way.

Bias, Communication, and Strategies to Overcome Barriers

Moving further, there are some biases, beliefs and assumptions that Black people in general and Black women in specific are inferior may hamper one to practice freely in a diverse setting. These assumptions often impede the way the people work together and can lead to limited perspectives also (Provo College, 2022). The other barriers that impede people from practicing diversity are the communication breakdown arising out of language barrier or differences in cultural norms (Provo College, 2022). These are the main beliefs that may hamper healthcare management to run successful diversity programs.

To overcome these barriers, biases, beliefs and assumptions, effective communication, acceptance and compassion can be practiced from the trainings that can be imparted right from the time an individual is growing and goes for higher education. Besides these, for Black women in specific, should have better public awareness, expanded health insurance coverage, improved capacity of underserved communities and increase knowledge base to reduce disparities. Thus, for innovation, decision making, empowerment, humanity, trust and acceptance, diversity must be practiced at all levels.

Reflection

The above Critical Analysis of practicing diversity has opened up many avenues to think beyond the biases and discrimination against Black women that I have been seeing right from my childhood to all these years now. There has a come a shift in the way I perceive the world now. As McIntosh (2012) rightly said unless the White privileged women break their own comfort realm or weaken the wall of being privileged, nobody in the world can do justice to the Black women. It is the women who can empower women and being an empathetic woman, I can understand what a Black woman would go through after having been prejudiced and demeaned. 

So, the topic has helped me to think beyond the realm of discrimination and has helped me to peak into the realm of diversity to practice diversity.

Changing Perspectives on Bias and Diversity

The bias and the narrow-mindedness I had about Black women that they are inferior and have lesser knowledge owing to being underprivileged and oppressed has definitely broken the wall of narrow-mindedness. I have understood that listening to only one side of the story is always dangerous, as rightly said by Adichie (2009) in her TED Talk. It is always good to view both the aspects of the coin rather than going with hearsay words. 

Diversity and Nursing Practice

The topic has also helped me to understand that the role of diversity in pour society is not just limited to being compassionate, accepting the people the way they are but it also adds innovation, positive thinking, open-mindedness, creativity and problem-solving that can come only in a diverse environment. Being a Nurse, it has opened the realm of thinking beyond the privileged, the White and seeing the Black side of it also. Since a Nurse has to be compassionate and welcoming for the patient, knowing the value of cultural competence and diversity will definitely help me to practice with an open and just mind rather than with a biased mind.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Diversity

I have analyzed the situation of Black women through the Historical lens but if I had analyzed the same with the natural and applied sciences perspective, I would say that again diversity would open myriad challenges in regard to complexity of medical conditions. However, it would also open the doors for solving problems and health conditions that should be covered under the aim of achievement of Universal healthcare for all. So, whether it is any lens of interdisciplinary education, diversity is what should be practiced at all instances and all the settings.

Communication and Professional Relationships

Lastly, the perspective of the value addition of communication among people of different origin, cultures, value systems, and ethnicity brings different flavors to one’s personal and professional lives. Not only does right communication break the barriers of hesitancy, narrow-mindedness and superiority or inferiority but also helps to think beyond the narrower walls of selfishness. Though it opens up new challenges, it also instigates group-work, team spirit, leadership practices and problem-solving skills. It is, therefore, a win-win situation for both the minority groups and the privileged. 

Conclusion

The paper, “Diversity in Healthcare,” closely looked into various aspects of diversity, its impact on us as a community and as an individual. Black Women have been facing discrimination and are considered below the line of social justice, have lesser means of housing, employment and bear more responsibilities than their White counterparts. Even being younger on an average than the White women in the United States, they have been facing more mortality and life expectancy than White women. The social discrimination has been seen from the historical times of slavery from the 1950s, accounts to their exploitation, reproductive abuse and poor access to healthcare. All these constitute the social determinants of health that have contributed to the discrimination of Black Women and their poor access to healthcare and health equity in specific. To ward off discrimination and to practice Diversity, it is important to include more and more Black women into the healthcare professions, impart their trainings and also impart trainings to the White to weaken the wall of the Privilege that White have been enjoying right from the time they are born. The paper then critically analyzed the critical analysis of the constructive collaboration with the Black, discussed various positive elements and the benefits that can reaped by practicing diversity. It also looked into various challenges or hurdles that can come in the practice of Diversity and Inclusion but with the right attitude, management initiatives, trainings as well as awareness raising programs the practice of Diversity can be made a reality. Not only does Diversity bring innovation, better decision-making capabilities and brings compassion, acceptance and empowerment of the communities but also inculcates team-spirit, leadership and great healthcare outcomes. The various ways of practicing diversity can be by making people aware of their human rights, through various measures done at the policy level and by helping people raise from their slumber. Therefore, practicing Diversity is a must in our country. Lastly, as an individual, the research-based evidence has helped me to look into the phenomenon of Diversity beyond the traditional beliefs of biasness towards being White. It has opened various aspects of bringing compassion, perseverance and strong decision-making capabilities in me. Being a Nursing student, practicing compassion in the diversity is a must for a healthy professional experience. Had I chosen my research from the different lenses of social science or natural and applied science or humanities, I would have opted for diversity and inclusion in healthcare as a must phenomenon. To conclude, Diversity is a reality, a way of acceptance, a way to break barriers through the practice of compassion. Practicing diversity in healthcare is important for one to realize giving importance and dignity to others and rising above the prejudices and biasness. As an individual, I respect diversity and would always bring Inclusion and Diversity in my personal as well as my professional life. Summarizing, Unity in Diversity is what we, as the people of United States must envision and should bring the same into reality. This is the way we can uplift ourselves and others.

References

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