Public health is a complex, multifactorial discipline, comprising a wide range of factors. The internal connections between those factors are highly important in the clinical environment, as they inevitably influence nursing outcomes. Bias and racial disparities form an area of major concern for contemporary society, in general, and the issue remains topical in healthcare, as well. Despite significant progress in recent years, racial prejudices remain within society. Bias permeates various aspects of human activities, including the public health system. If medical institutions allow stereotypes to dictate the nature of the relations with their patients, there will be dire consequences emerging from both ends. If a person’s treatment is determined by his race and the medical team’s bias, the effectiveness of procedures will significantly decrease. Consequently, this person is bound to lose trust in the system and avoid seeking professional help. Thus, the health inequities will persist and become even worse.
Racial disparities within the context of the healthcare system have been an area of intense interest for researchers and journalists for decades. The article written by Vann R. Newkirk II is devoted to one of the most outrageous and racist experiments in the history of American healthcare, namely the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. In brief, the experiment implied observations of syphilitic black men over the course of their lives in order to see whether the debilitating disease influenced them differently. However, none of the men knew they participated in a research experiment or even had syphilis at all. As a result, most of them died or were extremely damaged by the disease without proper treatment. The article in question argues that the Tuskegee Study had a lasting impact on the African American health inequity. It simultaneously helped a dangerous disease circulate within these communities and accelerated “accelerated an erosion of trust in doctors” (Newkirk II). This article contributes to a better understanding of how racial disparities become rooted in public health. The mistakes come at a great cost, having consequences in terms of nursing outcomes and health-seeking behavior of the population,
Work Cited
Newkirk II, Vann R. “A Generation of Bad Blood.” The Atlantic, 2016, Web.