Comparison of a minority group to the national average
Select an ethnic minority group that is represented in the United States (American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian American, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander). Using health information available from Healthy People, the CDC, and other relevant government websites, analyze the health status of this group.
In a paper of 1,000-1,250 words, compare and contrast the health status of your selected minority group to the national average. Include the following:
Describe the ethnic minority group selected. Describe the current health status of this group. How do race and ethnicity influence health for this group?
What are the health disparities that exist for this group? What are the nutritional challenges for this group?
Discuss the barriers to health for this group resulting from culture, socioeconomics, education, and sociopolitical factors.
What health promotion activities are often practiced by this group?
Describe at least one approach using the three levels of health promotion prevention (primary, secondary, and tertiary) that is likely to be the most effective in a care plan given the unique needs of the minority group you have selected. Provide an explanation of why it might be the most effective choice.
What cultural beliefs or practices must be considered when creating a care plan? What cultural theory or model would be best to support culturally competent health promotion for this population? Why?
Cite at least three peer-reviewed or scholarly sources to complete this assignment. Sources should be published within the last 5 years and appropriate for the assignment criteria and public health content.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
The US presents a minority and indigenous situation of unusual diversity and complexity. There are seven key minority and indigenous groupings: Latinos (including Puerto Ricans), African Americans, Asian Americans, Arab and other Middle Eastern Americans, Native Americans, Native Hawai’ians and other Pacific Islanders, and Alaska Natives. In most cases, these groupings include multiple distinct communities.
There are dozens of other distinctive ethnic and religious groups in the US. While some are small immigrant groups that do not yet have sufficient numbers and history to attract notice, others have been relatively successful in reaching accommodation with the dominant population and cannot be said to suffer significant discrimination as minorities in the US today.
Irish, Italian, Polish and other Roman Catholic European immigrants, for example, encountered serious prejudice prior to the Second World War, but have now integrated as ‘whites’. Often these groups have maintained their cultural cohesion while achieving economic advancement.
The Jewish population encompasses both those who practice the Jewish faith and those who identify as Jewish in cultural or ethnic terms. According to US Census Bureau estimates, in 2010 the Jewish population was a little over 6.5 million. However, some demographic studies by Jewish organizations suggest slightly lower figures. Anti-Semitism in the US was widespread and embedded in social and economic structures as recently as the mid-1960s. Today, however, Jews partake in every aspect of life, including political and social institutions and the media. Nevertheless, organized anti-Semitic violence occurs through hate-group activity.
Other religious communities – including Buddhists, Amish, Quaker, Dukhobor and Bruderhoffer Christians, Christian Scientists, Hare Krishnas, Mormons, Muslims, Native Americans who practice their traditional religions and spiritual beliefs, and Scientologists – have encountered barriers to the free practice of their faith in the past. However, jurisprudence has affirmed these groups’ constitutional rights to freedom of religion, including tax exemption. The pacifist Amish and Quakers were guaranteed freedom from compulsory service under the 1950s and 1960s military draft, and the Amish and other traditionalist religious groups have prevailed against pressures to abandon their rural, independent lifestyles.
The evangelical Christian population in the US has burgeoned in recent years, resulting in political trends that trouble religious liberty advocates. For example, there have been popular conservative campaigns on the teaching of intelligent design in place of Darwinism and compulsory prayer in public schools, and for ‘family values’ policies generally. Some operations against religious cults have been criticized for blurring the line between enforcing the law and enforcing moral and religious conformity.
Finally, according to US government statistics, which often undercount by slotting mixed-race people into one category or another, people of mixed race made up a growing proportion of US society, rising from 1 per cent in 1968 to 2.4 per cent in 2000 and 2.9 per cent of the population in 2010. Mixed-race people face particular emotional and social challenges in the rigid grid of US race relations.