Discuss how to close the health care disparities gap in the LGBTQ community?
Formatted and cited in current APA 7TH style with support from at least 2 academic sources.
Closing The Health Care Disparities Gap in The LGBTQ Community
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Closing The Health Care Disparities Gap in The LGBTQ Community
Introduction
About 3.5% of Americans identify themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual while 0.3% identify themselves as transgender. LGBTQ is an umbrella term that includes several groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and Queer people (Dentato, 2018). In the past decades, LGBTQ people have made significant progress in securing equal rights. For instance, several states and Washington D.C. have achieved these rights. However, this group of people continues to experience worse health outcomes than the heterosexual population. LGBTQ alongside members of a racial or ethnic minority often faces the highest level of health disparities (Morris et al., 2019). The purpose of the paper is to discuss ways that can help close the health care disparity gap in the LGBTQ community.
The negative health outcomes for this particular population are a result of cumulative and intersecting effects of several factors. These factors include reduced access to health insurance, social stigma, lack of competent care (Dentato, 2018). To reduce the health disparities manifested among the LGBTQ group compared to heterosexual people, proper strategies must be identified, implemented, reinforced, and monitored. To close the gap, the government should establish a dedicated and well-organized office, specifically, for the LGBTQ population. The office should have a long-term strategy to tackle LGBTQ concerns (Dentato, 2018). The particular office at the deferral levels should plan and execute programs that promote access to health insurance and health workers training regarding the LGBTQ population.
Health care training and education programs must make a concerted effort to equip practitioners to deliver better. One critical gap in the literature is whether integration of training programs in medical education would help students become cognizant of potential implicit biases towards LGBTQ patients (Morris et al., 2019). Education programs can help students develop effective bias reduction skills to fight biases in medical schools, residency, and beyond. Education is believed to be effective in reducing implicit racial and ethnic biases in medical schools and workplaces (Morris et al., 2019). Therefore, training healthcare professional students to be cognizant of and prevent implicit biases towards LGBTQ and other vulnerable populations provides a critical opportunity for promoting equal access to quality health care and, ultimately, for eliminating health disparities.
Furthermore, destigmatization will require collective efforts that enhance an ongoing collaboration between social work, health care, and policymaking agencies. There should be strong and effective ant discriminatory laws, enforced in every health care facility, to reduce stigmatization of LGBTQ patients by healthcare professionals (Dentato, 2018). This strategy will help increase access to comprehensive care for the LGBTQ people. Another strategy is to establish continuous training for practicing health workers regarding LGBTQ people. Since health workers are already out of medical schools, they need training and seminars organized at workplaces to educate them on LGBTQ health disparities and how to address the issue (Dentato, 2018). All the strategies discussed above can be effective in closing the healthcare disparity gap in the LGBTQ community.
Conclusion
LGBTQ is an overall word that includes several groups, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and Queer people. They are among the minority groups that face the highest level of health disparities. Various strategies can be put in place to try and close the health disparity gap in the LGBTQ community. All these strategies have been discussed in this paper.
References
Dentato, M. P. (2018). Social work practice with the LGBTQ community: The intersection of history, health, mental health, and policy factors. Oxford University Press.
Morris, M., Cooper, R. L., Ramesh, A., Tabatabai, M., Arcury, T. A., Shinn, M., … & Matthews-Juarez, P. (2019). Training to reduce LGBTQ-related bias among medical, nursing, and dental students and providers: a systematic review. BMC medical education, 19(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1727-3