Heart Diseases and Stroke

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death for many people in America; the disease associated behaviours are distributed all through the country. Stroke has also been listed as the fifth leading death cause and together, stroke and heart diseases are termed as the most costly health issues in the United States in the current day ("Heart Disease And Stroke | Healthy People 2020").

Health disparity

There is a high disparity in the quality of health care delivery across racial, ethnic, gender and social economic groups when it comes to heart diseases. Poverty and education have a great influence on health status and this affects the prevalence of heart diseases as well. The disease tend to affects some of the ethnic groups more than others especially those that are less educated as well as those who have lower incomes ("Heart Disease And Stroke | Healthy People 2020").  Some of the barriers to heart disease care that are experienced include; poor communication, perceived racism, cultural barriers and lack of provider parity with the patients. Most of the health care providers tend to be biased and thus do not offer treatment to those who really need it which lead to inadequate treatments for the minority groups. More people from the minority groups need to be trained in healthcare in order to help reduce the barriers to heart disease treatments.

Disparities in healthcare when it comes to heart diseases also lie in the awareness of and access to the knowledge about living a cardio protective life style. Hispanics and African Americans have about three times more hospital admissions for heart diseases and stroke as compared to other groups (Aspinal & Jacobson, p. 20). These groups have the worst outcomes from the heart diseases which include higher mortality rates all because of the unrecognized as well as the untreated heart disease risk factors.

Prevalence of risk factors

The risk factors for heart diseases and stroke can be classified as both controllable and uncontrollable.

The controllable risk factors for heart diseases include;

• High cholesterol levels,
• Smoking of cigarettes,
• Diabetes,
• High blood pressure
• Obesity

These risk factors in cause some changes in the blood vessels of the heart which leads to heart failure, heart attacks and even strokes. 

The uncontrollable risk factors include;

• Age, where people who are over 65 have high chances of getting heart diseases
• Gender, where men have higher rates of acquiring heart diseases than women
• Family history, an individual from a family with heart disease reference has high chances of getting a heart ailment
• Ethnicity, African Americans have a 40% higher chance of acquiring and dying from heart diseases as compared to the other groups. They are also twice likely to have stroke as well as higher rate of heart failure (Aspinal & Jacobson, p. 34). The Asians have higher Lipoprotein levels as compared to other groups which makes them highly vulnerable to heart diseases. They also tend to be insulin resistant which increases their risk factors to the diseases failure (Aspinal & Jacobson, p. 42).

Access to treatment

Treatment for heart diseases is neither cheap nor affordable to every one most especially the minority. Most people suffering from heart diseases go untreated which increases the mortality rates of the diseases (Ferdinand, p1). Most people in the minority groups do not get screened or even reach the correct therapeutic goals to help reduce cases of heart diseases because they do not have the facilities or enough knowledge regarding heart diseases. The African American and Asians have a 10% lesser chance of controlling their blood pressure as compared to the white people all because of lack of access (Ferdinand, p1).

The key element that can help improve heart disease treatment is education, heart diseases are mainly caused by controllable factors which can be eliminated through proper education. The society especially the minority should be enlightened about the risks factors of heart diseases and ways that they can control them (Aspinal & Jacobson, p. 54). Affordable health care should be provided for these groups in their various backgrounds to make it possible for them to access correct medical advice as well as treatment. Cardiovascular diseases and stroke are health issues that can be controlled and their impact reduced through provision of proper healthcare education.

 

Works cited

"Heart Disease And Stroke | Healthy People 2020". Healthypeople.Gov, 2018,

https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/heart-disease-and-stroke. Accessed 9 Oct 2018.

Aspinal PJ, Jacobson B. ‘Ethnic disparities in health and healthcare: a focused review of the

evidence and selected examples of good practice’. London Health Observatory. 2004. [http://www.lho.org.uk/viewResource.aspx?id=8831]

Ferdinand, Keith. "Improving Health Care Access For Minority And High-Risk Populations –

American College Of Cardiology". American College Of Cardiology, 2017, https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2017/05/31/17/42/improving-health-care-access-for-minority-and-high-risk-populations. Accessed 9 Oct 2018.