Bridging the Gap: Why Minority Communities Face Greater Health Disparities

22 Apr, 2025

"The zip code where you live may matter more than your genetic code." This is a sobering and inconvenient truth that highlights a troubling reality.

In many countries, especially the United States, minority communities are consistently experiencing worse health outcomes than white communities. Social determinants of health, including chronic illness, access to care, and other variables, affect health more than race. So, it is critical to understand that oppressive and systemic inequities exist. It is not enough to hope that we can remediate these problems because the costs to our healthcare system and human goods are dire.

To bridge this gap requires us to face down root causes and systemic barriers that minimize risks for minority populations.

1. The Unequal Starting Line: Historical and Structural Inequities

Health disparities emerged outside human control. The administration of healthcare emerged from centuries of structural racism and both racial and ethnic discrimination and a historical lack of investment in minority communities.

Take housing, for instance. Living in substandard housing conditions where many people of minority backgrounds stay exposes residents to dangerous elements such as lead, mold, and pest infestation, which develop asthma symptoms and additional medical complications. The social determinants of health work against minority groups from their first day because they face dangerous neighborhoods alongside minimal access to natural spaces.

2. Lack of Access to Affordable Healthcare

A critical access issue continues to persist as the main concern. Statistical data shows that racial groups, including Black Americans and Hispanics, along with Native Americans, experience the most uninsured insurance situations.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Hispanics with adult populations have 20% uninsured status, and Native Americans with 22% lack health coverage, yet white adults have a 7.5% uninsured rate in the United States after the COVID-19 pandemic. People living in racially dominated areas frequently experience problems accessing healthcare because these areas contain few medical services.

People in such areas avoid seeking medical care while using emergency rooms instead of primary healthcare and participating in minimal preventive healthcare activities (chronic disease management and cancer screenings).

3. Implicit Bias in Medical Treatment

Even when minority patients manage to access care, the playing field isn’t always level. Implicit bias—unconscious attitudes that influence decisions—can lead to misdiagnoses, inadequate treatment, and mistrust between patients and providers.

Studies have shown, for instance, that Black patients are less likely to be prescribed pain medication compared to white patients, even when presenting with the same symptoms. Similarly, women of color are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women—a disparity not fully explained by income, education, or insurance status.

This breakdown in trust isn’t accidental. It’s reinforced by generations of mistreatment—from the Tuskegee syphilis study to ongoing inequities in reproductive care—that have left lasting scars in minority communities.

4. Economic Insecurity and Jobs

Health and income have a direct correlation. People with lower incomes are more likely to be employed in physically demanding jobs, paid hourly wages, and lack paid sick leave. They are more likely to be employed in an environment that is hazardous to their health and report having less control than those provided with institutional job protections through wages and benefits. For instance, people in low-wage jobs, including food service, construction, and domestic caregiving, who are open to tackling the pandemic probably had to or contracted COVID-19 without help in a way that compromised their health. Even the experience of having an understanding of economic insecurity is itself stressful.

5. The Role of Education and Health Literacy

Education takes a prominent place in health, but minority communities have inadequate access to high-quality education. Many will have attended poorly funded schools that had inadequate classroom resources and programs and don’t see themselves reflected in academic systems.

Importantly, we understand the impact health literacy as an outcome of inadequate education, which is an important tool to manage your care and navigate the healthcare system (e.g., following up with skincare, directions on pharmacology, and primary or chronic condition care).

Even if health literacy is adequate, the lack of education and structural inequities can be significant barriers to achieving better health outcomes.

6. Cultural and Linguistic Barriers

Effective health care goes beyond any prescriptions, tests, or diagnosis. Effective health care involves communication, compassion, and cultural competency to deliver effective care.

In many instances, health care systems are not providing any language access services or culturally relevant care, leaving communities of color—who may not speak English or have different cultural backgrounds—to receive less information, feel like they couldn’t communicate, or fear they may have been mistreated.

Language loss can lead to medication errors, mismanagement of disease, and lack of patient satisfaction. Cultural humility—which ensures that providers are consciously open to acknowledging and respecting diverse backgrounds will assist in establishing trust and improve the ability to provide care.

7. Mental Health: The Silent Disparity

The discussion about minority health tends to overlook mental health issues even though the healthcare disparities are significant. Positive PTSD, anxiety, and depression disproportionately affect communities of color along with their limited access to treatment and healing services. However, they bear most of the trauma burdens originating from historical legacies and systemic race discrimination combined with financial pressures.

During many circumstances, social discrimination toward mental illness becomes more pronounced within minority communities while culturally responsive mental healthcare remains limited in availability.

Only 2% of psychologists in the United States maintain Black ethnicity, which limits access to therapists who understand patients' experiences.

8. Public Health Messaging and Distrust

During the COVID-19 pandemic, bias was partly ineffective. Distrust in government institutions, combined with absent outreach, for vaccination led to vaccine hesitancy and loss of an opportunity to save lives.

Moving forward, Public Health needs to co-construct initiatives with minority communities—not just for them. There may be health community workers, religious leaders, or grassroots organizers who may assist in these endeavors.

Bridging the Gap: Where Do We Go From Here?

Fixing healthcare disparities is not going to happen overnight. But it won’t happen at all if we don’t go to the structural root of it all:

• Address the social determinants: Health begins long before a patient sets foot in a clinic. However, for health equity to move forward, investments in housing, education, transportation, and food access need to be made.

• Increase healthcare diversity: More Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous doctors and nurses means improved cultural competence and enhanced trust.

• Require equity in healthcare policy: Health policy should require data to be collected by race/ethnicity but also demand accountability from the systems for their outcomes.

• Fund community programs with community leadership: Many grassroots efforts understand the barriers to health in their communities that are overlooked by policymakers sitting hundreds of miles away.

• Begin rebuilding trust: This starts with acknowledging the historical harms that the healthcare system has committed and assuring that transparency and accountability exist for anyone involved in medical research, medical trials, and care delivery.

Final Thought

Healthcare service disparities are not just medical issues but moral, social, and economic issues. They reflect the tolerance of the values of a system that has been allowed to privilege some to the detriment of so many others in our communities.

Bridging that gap will take the work of all stakeholders hearing the same message, some listening to communities, and making commitments not just to inclusion but to social, economic, and health justice. We hope these ideas will create a healthcare system that serves our communities and dismisses no one.

If you are looking for reliable primary care services, CVMedPro has your back. Our extensive network of healthcare providers enables you to choose the right professional. Schedule an appointment today!

To know more, get in touch with our team. Call us at 866-423-0060 or visit our website – www.cvmedpro.com