Briefly discuss at least three (3) key points from the KFF
Disparities in Health and Health Care webpage.
1. Why do health and health care disparities matter?
Disparities in Health and healthcare is major not only from an equity
standpoint, but also for enhancing health more broadly by accomplishing
improvements in overall quality of care and population health.
Research shows that disparities amount to roughly ninety three billion dollars
in excess medical care costs and forty two billion dollars in lost productivity per
year as well as economic losses due to premature death.
2. What are the key initiatives to address disparities?
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) advances efforts to reduce disparities and to
improve health and health care for vulnerable populations. The ACA health
coverage expansions work to increase the health care coverage low the low
and moderate income populations. The ACA also includes provisions to
strengthen the safety-net delivery system, improve access to providers,
promote greater workforce diversity and increase cultural competence,
strengthen data collection and research efforts, and implement an array of
prevention and public health initiatives. This is done by addressing health and
health care disparities we can look at a few factors:
 Raising public awareness about the racial and ethnic disparities in the
health system.
 Giving a wider coverage on health insurance.
 To improve the amount of health care providers in the under developed
communities.
 Increasing the knowledge base on causes and interventions to reduce
disparities.
3. What are current challenges to addressing disparities?
The challenges to addressing disparities, includes limited capacity to address
social determinants of health, declines in funding for prevention and public
health a health care workforce initiatives, and ongoing gaps in data to measure
and understand disparities.
Define the levels of prevention and provide 2 examples
for each level.
Prevention activities are typically categorized by the following three
definitions:
 Primary Prevention
 Secondary Prevention
 Tertiary Prevention
1. Primary Prevention— the level at which prevention is taken place before
the health issue occurs.
Examples include (1.) vaccinating of babies after they are born against certain
disease. (2) Educating people to practice some of the preventive behaviors,
such as having a balanced diet so that they can protect themselves from
developing diseases in the future.
2. Secondary Prevention—screening to identify diseases in the earliest stages,
before the onset of signs and symptoms. Through measures such as (1)
mammography for breast cancer and (2) regular blood pressure testing for
hypertension.
3. Tertiary Prevention—managing disease post diagnosis to slow or stop
disease progression through measures such as (1) chemotherapy, (2)
rehabilitation, and screening for complications.
Health Education can be applied at all three levels of disease prevention
and can be of great help in maximizing the gains from preventive behavior. .
Remember that primary prevention activities will actually stop the illness
happening, while secondary activities stop the illnesses getting worse.
Discuss examples of Health Initiatives at the Global,
National, State and Local level.
Health initiatives in New Jersey.
New Jersey health initiatives supports creativity and opens levels of
communication to foster and build healthier communities through funding
across the state of New Jersey. The helps to meet the health needs within the
state which includes a diverse ethnic groups, regions and communities.
This program encourages a collective effort across sectors in our state’s
communities to foster a better relationship committed in fostering a long term
change, which will enable individuals to live a healthier life.
In partnership with RWJ Community Health Promotions, our community
outreach programs are effective mediums for engaging people by educating
them on health and providing health screening and other services directly to
those in need. Our efforts focus on increasing health literacy, providing better
access to quality health care facilities and providers, and supporting
communities in need by funding vital health programs.
RWJ is committed to the surrounding community and participates in a variety
of programs designed to increase awareness of health disparities, improve
cultural competency among nurses and physicians and promote diversity
recruitment among physicians and other health care professionals by
encouraging minority youth to consider a career in health care.