Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wbk2r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-15T05:16:53.717Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 4 - Understanding and Addressing Health Disparities through a Racial Paradigm

from Section 1 - The Context of Healthcare Ethics Committee Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2022

D. Micah Hester
Affiliation:
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, College of Medicine
Toby L. Schonfeld
Affiliation:
National Center for Ethics in Health Care, US Department of Veterans Affairs
Get access

Summary

Bioethics was founded on issues of justice over 50 years ago during the civil rights era. Its founding was in response not only to increasing technological advances, life-sustaining treatments in medicine, and physician paternalism, but also to the exploitation of vulnerable communities in research such as the commonly cited United States Public Health Service study on Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama and the New York School of Medicine hepatitis study on institutionalized children with disabilities at Willowbrook State School. Over the last few decades, the focus on justice in bioethics has faded in the shadow of emerging technologies. In clinical ethics, the primary focus has been on autonomous decision making and beneficent health care. Justice through the lens of health disparities has typically been addressed through public health, not bioethics, but this is changing. The American Society of Bioethics and Humanities’ code of ethics states that HEC consultants should work with other healthcare professionals to reduce disparities, discrimination, and inequities when providing consultations (ASBH, 2014).

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. (2014). Code of ethics and professional responsibilities for healthcare ethics consultants. In Improving Competencies in Clinical Ethics Consultation: An Education Guide, 4. https://asbh.org/uploads/ASBH_Code_of_Ethics.pdfGoogle Scholar
Bailey, ZD, Krieger, N, Agénor, M, Graves, J, Linos, N, Bassett, MT (2017). Structural racism and health inequities in the USA: Evidence and interventions. The Lancet, 389(10077), 14531463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Braveman, P, Gottlieb, L (2014). The social determinants of health: It’s time to consider the causes of the causes. Public Health Reports, 129(1, Suppl. 2), 1931.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Centers for Disease Control and Intervention. (2017). Health disparities. www.cdc.gov/aging/disparities/index.htmGoogle Scholar
Hatzenbuehler, ML, Phelan, JC, Link, BG (2013). Stigma as a fundamental cause of population health inequalities. American Journal of Public Health, 103(5), 813821.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. (2014). US County Profile: North Slope Borough, Alaska. www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/county_profiles/US/2015/County_Report_North_Slope_Borough_Alaska.pdfGoogle Scholar
Smedley, BD, Stith, AY, Nelson, AR, eds. (2003). Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Institute of Medicine Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Sue, DW, Alsaidi, S, Awad, MN, Glaeser, E, Calle, CZ, Mendez, N (2019). Disarming racial microaggressions: Microintervention strategies for targets, White allies, and bystanders. American Psychologist, 74(1), 128142.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health. (2021). Profile: American Indian/Alaska Native. https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=3&lvlid=62Google Scholar
World Health Organization. (2020). Social determinants of health. www.who.int/social_determinants/en/Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×