Health by Race in Nebraska By Dillon Hansen, Jake Guentzel, and Abdullah Al-Azizi Introduction to Sociology 1010 Throughout history, we as a society have learned that our overall health and well being can, and often does, have a direct correlation with our race. Race and health is often thought of as the bond between our health as individuals and the ethnicity and race we associate with. In many ways there are health disparities between each race such as life expectancy, health results and health status. The issue that we are faced with, from a sociology stand point, is the concept that race affects not only biological differences but social differences as well. Through extensive research, we have gathered information about our community and Nebraska as a whole. We will try and present that information in a way that shows these exact disparities. To break this down further we will be looking at discrepancies between three different racial groups in average life expectancy, infant mortality rates, and diseases that cause
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Web viewexperience worse health generally has a lower socioeconomic status (SES), which may be the primary underlying cause of the differences in health
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Health by Race in Nebraska
By Dillon Hansen, Jake Guentzel, and Abdullah Al-Azizi
Introduction to Sociology 1010
Throughout history, we as a society have learned that our overall health and well
being can, and often does, have a direct correlation with our race. Race and health is
often thought of as the bond between our health as individuals and the ethnicity and race
we associate with. In many ways there are health disparities between each race such as
life expectancy, health results and health status. The issue that we are faced with, from a
sociology stand point, is the concept that race affects not only biological differences but
social differences as well. Through extensive research, we have gathered information
about our community and Nebraska as a whole. We will try and present that information
in a way that shows these exact disparities. To break this down further we will be looking
at discrepancies between three different racial groups in average life expectancy, infant
mortality rates, and diseases that cause mortality in total. From there we will look at the
impact this has on our culture here in Nebraska.
According to Doctors Raynard Kingston and James Smith, “numerous studies
have documented differences in health status among racial and ethnic groups across the
life cycle in the United States, and the disparities during middle and later life cut across a
range of dimensions of health status. By most measures, African Americans have worse
health status than Whites, but the patterns are more complex among Hispanics.”
(Kingston) They go on to note that
Although the precise causal path- ways producing racial and ethnic differences in
health status have not been clearly delineated, racial and ethnic groups that
experience worse health generally has a lower socioeconomic status (SES), which
may be the primary underlying cause of the differences in health. Lower SES may
lead to higher prevalence rates for many common chronic conditions via complex
pathways linking behavioral and psychological, social, biological, and genetic
factors. For example, low SES may be associated with higher cumulative levels of
stress, and biological reactants to this stress may contribute to the development of
hypertension. Once a person develops a disease, however, there may be wide
variation in its impact on functional status. This variation may be especially
important in chronic diseases for which treatment is known to affect clinical
outcomes such as hypertension and diabetes. Lower SES may lead to poorer
outcomes once a disease develops because of such factors as reduced access to
health care services, lower quality of medical care, and later diagnosis and greater
severity of illness. (Kingston)
What this tells us is that while race does matter, there are underlying reasons why they
matter African Americans, Hispanics and Caucasians generally live in different
conditions that are determined by socioeconomic status. With that being said it should be
prefaced that 100 percent of the races are this way. Naturally there are outliers and
exceptions to the rule. However, the general principle holds true in society and according
to our research holds true in Nebraska as well.
The three categories that we looked at for the state of Nebraska are average life
expectancy, infant mortality rates, and diseases each race faces. To further understand
what these are, it is important that we define each of them. According to News Medical,
average life expectancy is defined as “the number of years a person is expected to live
based on the statistical average. Life expectancy varies by geographical area and by era.
In mathematical terms, life expectancy refers to the expected number of years remaining
for an individual at any given age. The life expectancy for a particular person or
population group depends on several variables such as their lifestyle, access to healthcare,
diet, and economical status and the relevant mortality and morbidity data. However, as
life expectancy is calculated based on averages, a person may live for many years more
or less than expected.” (Mandal) The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
defines infant mortality rate as “the death of a baby before his or her first birthday is
called infant mortality. The infant mortality rate is an estimate of the number of infant
deaths for every 1,000 live births. This rate is often used as an indicator to measure the
health and well being of a nation, because factors affecting the health of entire
populations can also impact the mortality rate of infants. There are obvious differences in
infant mortality by age, race, and ethnicity; for instance, the mortality rate for non-
Hispanic black infants is more than twice that of non-Hispanic white infants.” The final
one is disease and although it is a broad term, it’s narrowed down definition is a disorder
of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific
signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of
physical injury.
Many families lost people they love, so some People concern about how
long they are going to live? How they are going to die? When, and where they are going
to die? On the other hand, some people die in a twinkle without preparing for it. In
addition, there are some critical conditions that increase the likelihood to decrease the life
expectancy of people. Furthermore, those critical conditions appear the most in some of
the racial groups, and between rich and poor people though three ways: the history; the
differences between the white and black life expectancy rate in the United States, and
how the life between rich and poor people affect the life expectancy. Many researches
prove those reasons.
For a long time some people of a different race suffered in some of the
communities because they were like commodity in the markets which dispersion many
families. Furthermore, those people was torched, killed and humiliated. According to a
new research from a Rice University titled by “Discrimination an Equal opportunity risk.
Racial experience, Socioeconomic Status and Health Status among Black and White
Adults” stated that “measuring social class, race and perceived discriminatory behavior
found that approximately 18 percent of black and 4 percent of whites reported higher
level of emotional upset of physical symptoms due to race-based treatment. Moreover,
those people from different racial groups were not having enough amounts of food, and
with fewer healthcare’s’, which resulted in decreasing to those people life expectancy.
According to a study revealed says “maternal mortality is higher for immigrants than for
the native born across multiple populations. Similarly, women of all Hispanic groups
have a higher risk of low birth weight and prematurity than whites”. This study approve
that the history has some of the affect in decaling blacks and Hispanics life expectancy.
The life expectancy of racial groups differs from each other, and from State to
another, according to a research made by Jennifer Welsh. The research made by looked at
the death certificate data from 1997 through 2004, covering more than 17 million people
from all 50 U.S States and District of Columbia. She found out for both men and women,
the racial disparity in life expectancy was the smallest in New Mexico (a gap of 3.76
years between white and black men, and 2.45 years for women) and largest foe D.C
(13.77 years for men 8.55 for women). In addition, the life expectancy of racial groups
differs from each other, and from State to another. According to a map study made by
Measure of America,” shows that each state has different life expectancy at birth years”.
Which has clear evidence that each state has its own life expectancy rate.
Map of US states by life expectancy at birth (years)Legend: 80-81.3 79.5–80.0
77.2-78.4 78.4–79.5 75.0–77.2
In Omaha, Nebraska there is a clear separation between the white and the black
people. Because we find out that white people live in the south. On the other hand, the
black people live in north Omaha. Through my experience in living in Omaha I saw that
south Omaha is save, clean, and organized more than North Omaha. In addition, all of
this resulted in affecting the live expectancy people the white and black. According to a
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Cooper, Charlie. The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media. Web. 15 Sept. 2015.
DeNavas-Walt, Carmen. Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States (2005). DIANE Publishing, 2010.
"Eliminating Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Health Care: What Are The Options?" The Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation Eliminating Racial Ethnic Disparities in Health Care What Are The Options Comments. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
Hitti, Miranda. "Life Expectancy Varies Widely Across the '8 Americas, 'Study Shows." WedMD Health News. N.p., 13 Sept. 2006. Web.
Ingraham, Christopher. "Our Infant Mortality Rate Is a National Embarrassment." The Washington Post. N.p., 29 Sept. 2014. Web.
Jones, Camara Phyllis, et al. "USING ‘‘SOCIALLY ASSIGNED IN HEALTH STATUS." Ethnicity & disease 18 (2008): 496.
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Martin, Judy, Susan Medinger, and Josie Rodriguez. "Health Status of Hispanics in Nebraska." Department of Health and Human Services, 1 Apr. 2014. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. <http://dhhs.ne.gov/publichealth/Documents/Health Status of Hispanics report- Updated.pdf>.
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National Center for Health Statistics. "Life Expectancy At Birth By Sex, Race, And State: 1989 To 2001 [Selected Periods]." ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the U.S. 2015 Online Edition. Ed. ProQuest, 2015. Web: ProQuest Statistical Abstract 10/15
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