User:Anyssa.pat/New sandbox

To add to Healthcare inequality in the United States

Demographic differences[edit]
Main articles: Race and health in the United States and Poverty and health in the United States

Health disparities are well documented in the US in ethnic minorities such as African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics. When compared to whites, these minority groups have higher incidence of chronic diseases, higher mortality, poorer health outcomes and poorer rates of diagnosis and treatment. Among the disease-specific examples of racial and ethnic disparities in the US is the cancer incidence rate among African Americans, which is 25% higher than among whites. In addition, adult African Americans and Hispanics have approximately twice the risk as whites of developing diabetes and have higher overall obesity rates. Minorities also have higher rates of cardiovascular disease and HIV/AIDS than whites. In the US, Asian Americans live the longest (87.1 years), followed by Latinos (83.3 years), whites (78.9 years), Native Americans (76.9 years), and African Americans (75.4 years). A 2001 study found large racial differences exist in healthy life expectancy at lower levels of education.

Public spending is highly correlated with age; average per capita public spending for seniors was more than five times that for children ($6,921 versus $1,225, equivalent to $10,427 versus $1,846 in 2021). Average public spending for non-Hispanic blacks ($2,973, equivalent to $4,479 in 2021) was slightly higher than that for whites ($2,675, equivalent to $4,030 in 2021), while spending for Hispanics ($1,967, equivalent to $2,963 in 2021) was significantly lower than the population average ($2,612, equivalent to $3,935 in 2021)). Total public spending is also strongly correlated with self-reported health status ($13,770 [equivalent to $20,745 in 2021] for those reporting "poor" health versus $1,279 [equivalent to $1,927 in 2021] for those reporting "excellent" health). Seniors comprise 13% of the population but take one-third of all prescription drugs. The average senior fills 38 prescriptions annually. A new study has also found that older men and women in the South are more often prescribed antibiotics than older Americans elsewhere, even though there is no evidence that the South has higher rates of diseases requiring antibiotics.

There is considerable research into inequalities in healthcare. In some cases, these inequalities are caused by income disparities that result in lack of health insurance and other barriers, such as equipment,  to receiving services. According to the 2009 National Healthcare Disparities Report, uninsured Americans are less likely to receive preventive services in healthcare. For example, minorities are not regularly screened for colon cancer and the death rate for colon cancer has increased among African Americans and Hispanic people. In other cases, inequalities in healthcare reflect a systemic bias in the way medical procedures and treatments are prescribed for different ethnic groups. Raj Bhopal writes that the history of racism in science and medicine shows that people and institutions behave according to the ethos of their times. Nancy Krieger wrote that racism underlies unexplained inequities in healthcare, including treatment for heart disease, renal failure, bladder cancer, and pneumonia. Raj Bhopal writes that these inequalities have been documented in numerous studies. The consistent and repeated findings were that Black Americans received less healthcare than white Americans—particularly when the care involved expensive new technology. One recent study has found that when minority and white patients use the same hospital, they are given the same standard of care.

''' Medical devices are expensive because the process of designing and approving them is long and costly, requiring that they be sold at higher than market price. The costs include: research, design and development, meeting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's regulatory guidelines, manufacture, marketing, distribution, and business plan.   Cost, alongside the impact of systematic oppression and inequality of communities of color within healthcare, together make medical equipment inaccessible. Most studies focused on access to medical devices and enhancement of affordable local production have concluded that increasing access to medical devices in an attempt to meet healthcare needs is extremely important. '''

The increase of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care raises issues equity and bias related to how health applications are developed and used. A recent scoping review identified 18 equity issues with 15 strategies to address them to try to ensure AI applications equitably meet the needs of the populations intended to benefit from them.