This issue of Family & Community Health (35.1) provides an array of articles that describe how health disparities are experienced by individuals and families and how they affect people of different ethnic and cultural groups as well as people who experience family health issues that influence how they are able to cope. Health care costs and individual and family pain and misery can be reduced when members of the family are healthy. However, staying healthy is not always easy. Not everyone is able or willing to actively participate in health promotion efforts that include maintaining a healthy diet, exercising regularly, avoiding stress, getting adequate rest and sleep, and refraining from smoking, excessive drinking, and the use of abusive substances.
People may not engage in healthy behaviors because they do not understand why they should do so or they may not know how to secure the care or services they need. Articles in this issue discuss examples of people not really understanding what is important about screening tests and what is involved in tests such as a Papanicolaou test, mammogram, or colonoscopy. Other people do not know how to prepare foods in a culturally appropriate fashion that is both healthy and appealing to their families.
Several of the articles talk about the importance of culturally and linguistically appropriate care. Often patients do not understand what they are being told by health care providers, yet they are reluctant to admit this. The patient may not speak the language of the provider or they may not understand the medical terms being used. Patients may be embarrassed that they do not understand or they may be unable to read the directions they are given in writing yet hesitant to acknowledge this lack.
It is important for health care providers, whether they are professionals or lay health care workers, to pay close attention to the literacy, especially the health literacy, of their clients. Also, think carefully about ways to deliver the care in a coherent and accessible manner. Persons seeking health care services are more likely to follow through on all recommendations if they can do so with some measure of convenience and if they can afford the costs of the services. For example, can all services be in walking distance from one another? Can more than one screening examination be done on the same day? What services can be provided at locations where people who experience health disparities are likely to be such as work, school, places of worship, child care facilities, or clinics in the local community? Read the articles in this issue to get some ideas about ways to more effectively meet the health care needs of persons who experience health disparities.