‘How can healthcare education effectively prepare healthcare professionals to recognise, address and mitigate health inequalities within diverse patient populations?’
The presence of health inequalities has been shown to negatively impact patient wellbeing and care. Ethnic and racial disparities are often found in healthcare systems and show a clear lack of equality in the care provided to patients. Although the sources of these inequalities are complex and problematic, it is important to develop and refine ways to overcome these issues through evidence-based practices to help provide the highest standard of care to all patients.
The World Health Organisation has defined health inequalities as “systematic differences in the health status of different population groups” that in turn cause “significant social and economic costs both to individuals and societies”. This highlights the core problem caused by inequalities
in health care as this exacerbation of risk factors and comorbidities increases the disease burden in marginalised communities. Socioeconomic inequality has been shown to have a negative effect on care received by patients in the systematic review conducted by Lago et al. that stated “if income inequality increases, it tends to reduce average health”. During the COVID-19 pandemic the disparities in care between certain groups was quickly recognised as an unjust consequence of the systemic issues within the NHS. This is due to the fact that patients from ethnic minority groups had a significantly higher risk of being diagnosed with COVID-19 than their white counterparts. Additionally, the risk of mortality and serious complications associated with COVID-19 was notably larger in these groups (Mishra et al., 2021).
A way in which healthcare education can be used to address and reduce health inequalities in diverse populations is to incorporate the concept of cultural competency into training. The idea of cultural competency has been widely researched and discussed in relation to improving the effects of health inequalities, however, there is a lack of clarity on how to optimise its use in
clinical practice. This in turn means that although the solution of cultural competency is highly useful, its practical implications are not utilised to its full capacity. This is due to the fact that the approach of learning about the individual whilst simultaneously learning about groups is one of the potential pitfalls of cultural competency. This is because applying this concept broadly can lead to the formation of stereotypes and oversimplification of cultures with disregard for their complexities (Betancourt, Corbett and Bondaryk, 2014).
To ensure cultural competency is utilised fully and correctly, it should be adapted to focus more on the development of skills that follow the principles of patient-centred care, instead of solely focusing on learning information and then making assumptions about patients based on their racial or cultural backgrounds (Betancourt, Corbett and Bondaryk, 2014). It is important to understand that increasing diversity creates both opportunities and challenges for healthcare professionals, therefore the implementation of cultural competency in a more systemic approach will help to reduce the gap in healthcare between different ethnic groups. This would also ensure the prevention of applying generalised assumptions to individual patients and instead increase the practice of optimised patient-centred care.
References:
Betancourt, J.R., Corbett, J. and Bondaryk, M.R. (2014). Addressing Disparities and Achieving Equity: Cultural Competence, Ethics, and Health-care Transformation. Chest, [online] 145(1), pp.143–148. doi:https://doi.org/10.1378/chest.13-0634.
Lago, S., Cantarero, D., Rivera, B., Pascual, M., Blázquez-Fernández, C., Casal, B. and Reyes, F. (2017). Socioeconomic status, Health Inequalities and non-communicable diseases: a Systematic Review. Journal of Public Health, [online] 26(1), pp.1–14.
doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-017-0850-z.
Mishra, V., Seyedzenouzi, G., Almohtadi, A., Chowdhury, T., Khashkhusha, A., Axiaq, A., Wong, W.Y.E. and Harky, A. (2021). Health Inequalities during COVID-19 and Their Effects on Morbidity and Mortality. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, Volume 13(13), pp.19–26. doi:https://doi.org/10.2147/jhl.s270175.
World Health Organization (2018). Health Inequities and Their Causes. [online] World Health Organization. Available at:
https://www.who.int/news-room/facts-in-pictures/detail/health-inequities-and-their-causes.
