Barriers and Disparities in Health Care - Research Paper Example

The paper “Barriers and Disparities in Health Care” investigates the numerous barriers to achieving satisfactory health care, which in turn lead to disparities and eventually result into poor healthcare. Some of the barriers currently existing in the health care provision include geographic barriers, socioeconomic and cultural barriers. Geographical barriers refer to people living in the rural parts who cannot get quality health care because of insufficient facilities in those regions. Health care facilities in the rural regions are normally understaffed because there is challenge of recruiting the health care providers to work in the rural regions.

Rural populations are exposed to numerous geographic and climatic barriers which at times makes the hospitals to be located in rugged terrain which are not easily accessible. Moreover, there are lacks public transportation in the rural areas which hinders populace from receiving health care. There is also widespread poverty in rural areas than in the urban settlements. Socioeconomic factors also largely deters adequate provision of quality health care since low income households cannot afford health insurance cover and access the high cost of health care delivery.

The less income families may not be able to pay for essential out of pocket charges such as deductibles and medicines even if they may afford insurance cover. Socioeconomic factors are therefore very significant in preventing adequate access to health care facilities.. Cultural beliefs about diseases and health care differ amongst different communities around the world across the world. For instance, the Western attribute of healthcare may differ from other countries health belief systems. Other people especially from Asia are always comfortable with traditional mode of treatment than the modern strong and improved medicines.

Sensitivity about culture is therefore very important because any disregard of culture by a healthcare practitioner may prevent an individual from vulnerable populace from receiving quality healthcare. There is disparity in health literacy and therefore health care providers must ensure that they consider cultural considerations before for successful health care delivery (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2013). Health Care Disparity Better health outcome requires that the entire population should receive equally superior health care but this has not been the case due to numerous disparities that persist.

Disparities however differ in almost every population depending on various factors. Ethnicity, culture and race are amongst the parameters that contribute to disparities in healthcare provision. Generally, these disparities can be classified into communication failure, provider discrimination and lack of preventive care (Mason, Leavitt & Chaffee, 2006). Communication between health care providers and the patients is vital in ensuring adequate provision of health care. Failure to properly communicate may result into inappropriate diagnosis and improper admission of medicines.

There are some patients who cannot speak similar language as the health providers hence there may be a need of