Healthy People and Health

Health Disparities in Healthy People 2020

For the last two decades now, one of the central goals of Healthy People has been on alleviating disparities. Healthy people 2000 focused on reducing health related disparities in the American population. The Healthy people 2020 mission defines health disparity as a health difference that has close links with socio-economic and environmental disadvantages. Such heath disparities negatively affect groups that face systematic obstacles because of their race, socio-economic stature, religion gender, age cognitive abilities, physical disability, geographic location, exclusive considerations, sexual orientation, or ethnic group (Anon., n.d.).

Maternal, Infant and Child Health

As in the case with adults, social and demographic forces, including the income that the family gets affects infant health, too. Physical and mental health dynamics of the caregiver and parent are also causal to the effects. Racial-based disparities have been observed in both mortality and morbidity for children and mothers. This situation is particularly true for African-Americans. The outcomes in differences result from multiple factors. It has also been noted that the social linked determinants that affect maternal health also affect pregnancy outcomes and Infant health.

Ethnic and racial disparities in mortality rates of infants; especially among African-Americans is a known fact. The latest efforts to solve infant, maternal and child health project a life course view to promotion of health and prevention of disease. At the beginning of this decade, the situation was that less than half of pregnancies were unplanned. There is a myriad of health concerns linked to unintentional pregnancies. In an effort to address the situation preconception programs exist, that focus on bolstering a woman's health before they conceive. These efforts use a range of evidence based intervention strategies. The life course approach encourages observance of the quality of life. These endeavors also focus on the challenges of both male and female fertility. It is estimated that about 7.3 million American women aged between 15 and 44 have visited fertility service providers. These services include diagnosis and counseling.

Health disparities are widespread when it comes to fertility matters. These are prevalent among African-American women. Observers point out that the situation is bound to worsen with changes in childbearing practices (Anon., n.d.).

Report Card on Nation's Health

Achieving equity in health and removing disparities is one of the 4 core goals of Healthy People 2020.There are indications that there is progress. For instance, there is an overall decline in mortality between the baseline year 2006 and 2010. The differential between non-Hispanic white mothers and non-Hispanic blacks is narrowing. There has also been a marked decline in the rates of homicide between 2007 and 2010. The gap has narrowed in these rates between non-Hispanic blacks and Asians or even Pacific Islander communities. However, such achievements have not been recorded in other areas such as educational levels and/or income. For example, in the pursuit for decreasing children's exposure to second hand smoke, it has been noted that non-Hispanic black children are exposed to greater exposure levels than children of Hispanic identity (Howard K. Koh, et al., 2014).

Relationship with Social Disadvantage