Healthcare Disparities

When speaking of healthcare disparities, it is normal to speak of commonly impacted groups such as women or African-Americans. The diseases or disorders that are commonly the focus of such policy and strategy are things like diabetes, heart disease and so forth. However, this brief report shall represent a change of pace in that something else has reared its head this year. That something has been much more virulent and nasty than is normally seen. That, of course, would be the flu. Flu season this year has been especially nasty and the same factors that commonly cause vulnerable classes to suffer more from diabetes and heart disease, just to name two, also impact them when it comes to the flu. While some may think that getting flu shots is a waste of time, the number of dead and severely debilitated just this year proves otherwise.
Analysis
The healthcare policy change that should happen when it comes to the flu is two-pronged in nature. First, the affected classes and people that are not getting the flu vaccine should be pressed to get one. Whatever the limiting factors happen to be should be removed from being barriers. Depending on the situation, it might be general access to care, transportation, cost or other things. However, the flu vaccines are readily available and cost is not nearly the issue that it could be with other things. The other prong would be improving the vaccine so that “missing” the strain that is prevalent in a given year does not have the rather negative outcomes that it had this year or any similar year. In short, there must be a push to help the general performance of the vaccine in addition to getting the proper penetration into the patient pool, inclusive of the vulnerable groups that are less likely to get the vaccine in the first place. This is very much an initiative that is centered on public and community health. The implicaitons are public-wide but the manner in which these gaps are resolved will need to be on the community level in many instances. The CDC and other groups can trumpet the importance of getting the vaccine all day. However, community-level interventions will be necessary to truly make progress. There is not currently a prevalent “bill” or piece of legislation to change the flu shot process. However, there certainly needs to be one. Whatever needs to be done to increase work on a more effective flu shot must be completed. This includes dedicating the proper people, money, time and other resources. If this needs to be an explicit part of law so that nobody has the ability or option to divert resources elsewhere, then that is what needs to happen. No administrator or legislator in a proverbial ivory tower should have the ability to divert away from this priority (Woods, 2018).
The federal “champion” behind this effort needs to be no less than the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The President needs to dedicate direct attention to this just like what is already happening with the opioid crisis. The health department and health public policy leaders in the respective states should follow in the footsteps of the federal government. This should happen, at the very least, in regard to getting people the flu shots that are on the market right now. If funding and options exist, state-level research can be done as well. However, all of the research and efforts that exist should be contributing to the same goal rather than travelling the same path over and over again. Project management principles and the general idea of following the same critical path from a project management and public health standpoint should be the norm. An example of a regional concern that should be addressed is the concern about the safety of the flu shot among California residents. The “anti-vaxxers” are especially high-pitched in that state. Their statements about the safety and efficacy of the shot are generally somewhat or completely false, not to mention very dangerous. The links they try to talk about including to autism and so forth are not present in any reputable scientific literature. The mercury that is present (or has been present) in some of the vaccine doses is not the same kind of mercury that is so very dangerous to the public, and it’s in minimal amounts. This sort of anti-information campaign is present to some degree in all jurisdictions. However, it is more prevalent in some areas than others. It is literally getting people killed and the sheer idiocy and ignorance of the anti-vaxxer movement needs to be attacked head on for what it is (Allday, 2017).
One thing that was mentioned before and that needs more attention would be how to improve the vaccine. There is a general knowledge of what is necessary to improve the flu vaccine. However, there is apparently the need to incentivize private interests into improving the vaccine. The public agencies and research bodies can help. However, there is very little that can match the investment and research muscle that is present with the private pharmaceutical companies. Generally speaking, they move and react based on profit and enriching themselves. This is not to say that they do not engage in philanthropic and humanitarian efforts at all. However, the profit motive generally wins out more often than not, partially out of necessity to as to keep operations going. Even if it takes a little federal funding to coax them, money should be diverted to the big pharmaceutical companies to make a “universal” flu vaccine that transcends all strains of the virus. This would mean that the certain strain that emerges each year would be treatable with the vaccine no matter what strain it happens to be (McKenna, 2018).
Conclusion
Once that vaccine is perfected, all groups of people would be made healthier and safer. Coupling the universal vaccine with community healthcare efforts to assist the vulnerable classes would be a way to help everyone. The aforementioned educational efforts to deal with anti-vaxxers would address the other issue. Getting the medicinal part of the problem fixed is the first prong and getting the vaccine into the patients, inclusive of the anti-vaxxer quashing, is the other. All three sub-parts needs to be done with no flinching or mismatched resources.
References
Allday, E. (2018). Flu deaths up in California amid concern over vaccine. San Francisco
Chronicle. Retrieved 27 February 2018, from https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/ Flu-deaths-up-in-California-amid-concern-over-12460570.php
McKenna, M. (2018). Big Pharma Has the Flu. WIRED. Retrieved 27 February 2018, from
https://www.wired.com/story/flu-vaccine-big-pharma/
Woods, B. (2018). Flu deaths up in California amid concern over vaccine. San Francisco
Chronicle. Retrieved 27 February 2018, from https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/
Flu-deaths-up-in-California-amid-concern-over-12460570.php