Racial Inequality and Hoarding: A Public Health Issue Essay (Article)

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Updated: Feb 23rd, 2024

Racial inequality

In the article “Racial inequality: a public health issue” in the KALW NEWS website on September 28, 2010, the author Heather Gilligan talks about the issue of public health and racial inequality. Poverty and health are interlinked, and people in poverty have poor health. In America, African Americans have more health problems than their white counterparts do due to poverty.

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Wealth gap

The wealth gap between African American and white families is enormous. The difference in wealth affects life expectancy and whites live seven years longer than African Americans who live in poverty. Despite their cancer rate being lower than that of their counterparts, African American rate of death from breast cancer is higher. The black women lack adequate education on breast cancer and often go to the hospital when the disease is at an advanced stage hence deadly.

They also lack screening facilities in their poor neighborhoods. African Americans have less employment opportunities in their community. Consequently, their income levels have declined resulting to financial constraints that deny them the opportunity to seek medical services. The cost of healthcare is expensive hence out of reach of the poor blacks. Thus, they succumb more to diseases than the whites who can afford healthcare cover (Gilligan, 2010).

Disparities between whites and African Americans

Moreover, racial inequality contributes to poor health among African Americans. Even wealthy African Americans have poor health outcomes compared to wealthy whites. Other factors such as stress play a major role too in the health outcomes of African Americans.

They live in neighborhoods with high levels of violence unlike whites thus more stress. African Americans have less hope than the whites do when it comes to fighting diseases due to different conditions brought about by class disparities that disadvantage African Americans (Gilligan, 2010).

Hoarding

In the article titled “Drowning in junk: Hoarding called a public health issue” carried on the CNN website on August 5, 2010, Madison Park talks about hoarding. Some people hoard stuff in their homes and this habit has become a public health problem. Hoarding can endanger the lives of the people living in a house and their neighbors too.

The clutter scattered all over the house may harbor vermin or rodents that may infect human beings with diseases. Some people have died after junk fell on them or trapped them inside the house in case of a fire. Moreover, cleaning the clutter and junk is costly, and the money would have been used to do other useful things instead.

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Reasons for hoarding

Hoarding is an issue that is hard to understand due to its unique nature. Some people do not even know they have a problem with hoarding making to difficult to curb. Some hoarders hide their problem by alienating people from their lives and houses. People hoard stuff due to various reasons, such as filling a void in their lives. Others hoard because they are unable to let go of stuff that they no longer need and others buy excessive stuff they never get to use.

Psychiatrists’ response

On the contrary, some do not think hoarding is a problem but a trait that some people possess. Some hoarders do not seek help because they do not believe they have a problem. This has led psychiatrists to look into the issue more, and they are considering listing it as a disorder in its own right in the mental health manual. Hoarding is an issue that the public needs to know about to understand it because little is known about this public health problem (Park 2010).

Reference List

Gilligan, H. (2010). Racial inequality: a public health issue. Web.

Park, M. (2010). . Web.

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IvyPanda. 2024. "Racial Inequality and Hoarding: A Public Health Issue." February 23, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/racial-inequality-and-hoarding/.

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