Correlation Between Race And Health Inequalities - 905 Words

As the appointed Director of the World’s Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health, I have the opportunity to examine the relationship between race and health inequalities. Race is a significant predictor of the distribution of health inequalities as it is quite notable that people with similar biological traits seem to experience a non-random distribution of morbidity and mortality. There are various underlying factors of health inequalities in relation to race. This report will focus on the scientific misconception of racism, the consequences of colonization and environmental injustice. According to Smedley (2005) race is a societal construct for the categorization between groups of people. However, the field of medicine attributes racial biological differences as the causation of health inequalities. This is a questionable notion since scientists explained that humans are genetically 99.1% alike, with the remaining small percentage accounting for our phenotypical variation. Attributing genes as the answer to our health disparities leads to individuals believing that racial differences can be unaltered. This can be used to justify segregation of races and the superiority of certain groups, thus creating a lack of critical thinking of factors which actually contribute to certain health trends (Smedley Smedley, 2005). For example, in the film When the Bough Breaks (California Newsreel, 2008) African American women seem to have a disproportionateShow MoreRelatedRace Advances Health Care Research1335 Words   |  6 Pagesand research, and should not be eliminated. Fir stly, studying race advances health care research because it adds a layer of understanding between the doctor and the patient; the researcher and the subject. 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The articles analyzed for this paper are Baum (2011) â€Å"The effects of food stamps on obesity† from the Southern Economic Journal; Darmon and Drewnowski (2005) â€Å"The economics of obesity: dietary energy density and energy cost† from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition; and Broady and Meeks (2015) â€Å"Obesity and social inequality in America† from the