Impacts of Discrimination on Behavioral Diversity and Health and Wellness Choices

Discrimination on Behavioral Diversity
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Discrimination on Behavioral Diversity
Delivering universal care that befits the needs of all people is something that a nation must target in contemporary society. The world has grown more connected than it used to be three decades ago due to advancements in technology and enhanced human-to-human interactions. However, not much has been achieved in bridging the gaps in healthcare service delivery. Discrimination stays among the biggest challenges that people from various communities face in healthcare that demands a structured approach to address. Discrimination is an unfair socially-structured action that extends to trigger unjustified behaviors and harm among various individuals or groups. Discrimination stems from social interactions that happen to protect the interest of privileged or powerful social groups to the detriment of other groups. Multiple pieces of literature have been published to showcase how discrimination can affect the health of various populations adversely.
Discrimination is a prospect whose impacts are felt both at the individual and structural levels. Structural discrimination implies wide-area level conditions that limit the well-being, resources, and opportunities for the less privileged groups (ODPHP, 2021). In the context of discrimination, the less privileged groups can include people from specific minority ethnic groups, workers and rural populations, persons living with chronic illnesses, children, older persons, asylum seekers, and members of the LGBTQ community. Conversely, individual discrimination implies negative interactions at the micro-level such as individuals in their institutional roles such as patients and their healthcare providers based on individual characteristics such as gender, age, or race, among other variables (Gopalkrishnan, 2018). Whether or not it is perceived by the individuals involved, any form of discrimination can cause either intentional or unintentional harm. Within a healthcare setting, discrimination can be compounded over a long time to trigger psychological impacts such as anxiety or even a negative perception about some interactions within clinical settings.
Contemporary societies measure discrimination either through major or everyday discriminatory events. Major discriminatory events constitute significant experiences of unfair treatment. Some instances of major discrimination include individuals who are denied access to healthcare services, being denied a loan, or being denied an opportunity to purchase property in some location because an individual manifests some unique characteristics (Hye et al., 2018). Everyday discrimination, conversely, delves into continuous, routine, or ongoing experiences that an individual undergoes to feel that he/she is treated unfairly. Aspects such as receiving poorer services, being treated with less respect, and being threatened constitute some of the elements of everyday discrimination. Combined, any aspect of discrimination can steer individuals to develop perceptions that can deter them from similar experiences (Rivenbark & Ichou, 2020). An individual who experiences discrimination from a particular healthcare facility can seek al...