• a. Health Equity: Health equity refers to the attainment of the highest possible level of health for all individuals, regardless of their background or circumstances.
  • a.i. Achieving health equity necessitates valuing everyone equally, which involves focused and sustained societal efforts to address and rectify preventable inequalities. This includes addressing historical and ongoing injustices, as well as working toward the elimination of disparities in health and healthcare access. These efforts are essential to ensure that all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, have the opportunity to achieve optimal health outcomes.

2. Emerging Populations in the US

• a. Emerging populations in the United States encompass ethnic minorities such as Asian Americans, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Arabs, as well as individuals who are homeless.
  • b. The disparities present within the healthcare system can lead to increased social costs, which are often attributed to lost productivity and the higher utilization of healthcare services among these ethnic minority populations. Addressing these disparities is crucial to reducing the broader societal impacts and ensuring that all populations have equitable access to healthcare resources.

3. Ethnicity, Ethnic Group, Minority Group, and Race

• a. Race: Race is a dynamic and complex set of historically derived and institutionalized ideas and practices. It serves as a means to categorize people into different ethnic groups based on perceived physical and behavioral characteristics.
  • a.i. Race is often linked with the distribution of power, privilege, and social status, creating a hierarchical ranking among different groups. It emerges particularly in situations where groups perceive each other as a threat—whether political, economic, or cultural—or when there is a need to justify the denigration, exploitation, or prejudice against another group, both historically and in contemporary contexts.
  • a.ii. Race is closely associated with power dynamics and reflects the historical and ongoing imposition of one group’s authority over another.
• b. Ethnicity: Ethnicity, like race, is a dynamic set of ideas and practices that have been institutionalized over time. It allows individuals to identify with or be identified by groupings of people based on presumed commonalities, which may include language, history, national or regional origin, customs, religion, names, physical appearance, and genealogy or ancestry.
  • b.i. Ethnicity focuses on differences in meanings, values, and ways of living, and these differences are often reflected in the customs and cultural patterns of a particular group.
  • b.ii. Ethnic identity can provide individuals with a sense of belonging, pride, and motivation, and can serve as a powerful source of meaning and action within a community.
• c. Minority Group: A minority group consists of people who, within a given society, are typically disadvantaged in terms of power, control over their lives, and wealth. These groups often face systemic barriers that limit their opportunities and access to resources compared to the majority population.

4. Culture, Values, and Value Orientation

• a. Culture: Culture encompasses the integrated patterns of human behavior that include language, thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions associated with racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups.
  • a.i. Culture is an element of ethnicity, influencing the ways in which individuals within a cultural group interact with the world around them.
  • a.ii. It is shaped by the values, beliefs, norms, and practices that are shared among members of the same cultural group. These cultural patterns guide behavior and influence how individuals within the group perceive and interact with their environment.
• b. Values: Values are beliefs about the worth of something and serve as standards that influence behavior and thinking.
  • b.i. They are unique, individual expressions of a particular culture that have been accepted as appropriate over time, guiding actions and decision-making.
  • b.ii. Values play a crucial role in shaping human behaviors and determining how individuals will maintain their health status, care for themselves, and interact with others.
  • b.iii. They are integral to building self-worth and self-esteem, influencing not only personal decisions but also collective actions within a cultural context.