1

Morris 2

Stephanie Morris

Timothy Smith

ENC 1101

11 September 2026 Thesis statement: Even though technology and scope of practices have advanced during this time, multiple factors including but not limited to race can contribute to the type of care being provided and offered which has a negative impact on the healthcare system practices and models.

Disparities In Healthcare

Healthcare mortality and healthcare outcomes differ based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender and immigration status are just some of the few things mentioned. “Black Americans were nearly three times more likely to die from asthma than white non-Hispanic Americans, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services” (Gale). For example, there was a Tuskegee Syphilis study between 1932-1972, the government used a group of poor African American sharecroppers as test subjects for studying the natural progression of untreated syphilis without their knowledge or consent.  The agency conducting the study lied to participants and did not give them any treatment, purposefully providing placebos even after penicillin became an available treatment. To track the progression of the disease, researchers provided no effective care, allowing hundreds of participants to develop syphilis related complications, including blindness and insanity, and die.

This is just one of many instances where race has played a major role in the effects of the healthcare system and models. “Historical abuses and ongoing discrimination drive health disparities because they foster distrust and even fear” (Gale). This abuse is attributed to the distrust and fear of healthcare workers and institutions for minorities. We hear on numerous occasions of the type of things that happen when care is being provided to different socioeconomic statuses and race. There has been much talk about delays of care for people of color over many years. This form of discrimination needs to be rectified due to the negative outcome scores of the healthcare system. These types of disparities give us a clear understanding of how the different care being provided affects the mortality rate of the healthcare system in the United States.

Works Cited

“Health Care Disparities."  Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2022.  Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/ZJTWXV815454948/OVIC?u=lincclin_ircc&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=f264cde6.

Guo, Jingchuan, et al. " Income disparities in driving distance to health care infrastructure in the United States: a geographic information systems analysis." BMC Research Notes, vol. 15, no. 1, 27 June 2022. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-06117-w. Accessed 7 June 2026.

Payne-Sturges, Devon C., et al. " Confronting Racism in Environmental Health Sciences: Moving the Science Forward for Eliminating Racial Inequities." Environmental Health Perspectives, vol. 129, no. 5, May 2021, p. 55002. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, dx.doi.org/10.1289/EHP8186. Accessed 7 June 2026.