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Reply to 2 discussion posts –
What is Health and Health Care Disparities? What is being done to address Health Disparities among American Indians? What are some strategies/recommendations?
As stated in the given article, health and health care disparities refer to differences in health and health care between groups that stem from broader inequities. In order to address Health Disparities among American Indians, many attempts were made to explain the distribution of health and disease. It seems that the explanation includes multiple factors such as religion, diet, living conditions, climate, cultural practices, racial differences and even socioeconomic status. Some researchers also proposed that it is because American Indians naturally have genetic susceptibilities to many diseases and some believe that it is due to inadequate education, disproportionate poverty, discrimination in the delivery of health services and cultural differences. As for genetic reasons, multiple kinds of research have been conducted in hopes of finding genes for every disease and disparity. Nevertheless, this genetic explanation does not seem to stand a chance, compared to how environmental factors play a role in perpetuating healthcare disparity, because how can American Indians own genetic vulnerabilities to all human diseases? It seems more reasonable that the health disparity is an indirect result of the wealth disparity since colonization. Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic even highlights such disparity as some groups are at an increasingly higher risk of getting COVID-19 due to the limited access to vaccination. To combat this problem, the Biden administration has identified health equity as a key priority. For instance, the National Institutes of Health launched the UNITE Initiative to bring attention to structural racism and racial inequities in biomedical research. According to the provided article, in January 2021, President Biden issued an Executive Order on Ensuring an Equitable Pandemic Response and Recovery, which establishes a COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, “directs agencies to strengthen equity data collection and reporting and ensure response plans and policies provide for equitable allocation of resources and directs HHS to conduct an outreach campaign focused on building vaccine confidence among communities of color and other underserved populations.” Not only that, The American Rescue Plan Act, recently passed in 2021, “contains provisions designed to increase access to health coverage and make health coverage more affordable”, which solved one of the biggest issues in American health and healthcare

disparity: health insurance.
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Question 1: What is Health and Health Care Disparities? What is being done to address Health Disparities among American Indians? What are some strategies/recommendations?
Health refers to the general condition of a group or person. This encases mental, physical, and psychological; basically any observable health. To some degree, this also includes the environment and homeland. These are included because they affect its inhabitants when there are changes made to that environment. Disparities in health refer to subtle or deliberate changes in care received due to “racial or ethnic group; religion; socioeconomic status; gender; age; mental health; cognitive, sensory, or physical disability; sexual orientation…” (KFF 2021). Groups that experience these obstacles experience a severe disadvantage when compare with groups that do not experience health disparities. American Indians were one of many groups that experienced health disparities. The US government attempted to better conditions for American Indians. At first, they tackled the issue of tuberculosis. The campaign proved to be a success since “in more than 50 years, more Indians were born than died” (Public Health ans Social Justice, 107). Along with this, there were more programs that intended to rehabilitate groups of Indians. One of the main suggestions that speculated why there was health disparity among American Indians was linked to the lack of economical development. With no real modern medical center in sight, “McDermott’s team…worked closely with Wuaneka and other Navajo leaders to reduce morbidity and mortality…”(Public Health and Social Justice, 109). This was a major step in advancing American Indian health care, but it wouldn’t have that much of an overall impact. There are similarities between migrant farm workers and the homeless when it comes to health care disparities. They both had government intervention in aiding and hindering health care progression. Migrant workers had to deal with Proposition 187. This proposition banned immigrants from accessing state services. These services included “medical services, public schooling, and social services” (Ballotpedia 2022). Although Prop 187 banned health care services, it did allow the use of emergency services. Similarly, the majority of the homeless population does not have access to medical services with the exception of EMS. Even if they received the same treatment, the circumstances and reasons which provided an incentive to implement these restrictions, were different. One was driven by racism and the other to prevent service without pay.