National Minority Health Month

By: Natalie Samara

What is a minority? There are different definitions for what a minority is, but one accepted definition for it is a social group within a larger society that is smaller in number compared to the dominant group and often faces disadvantages or discrimination based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. In the United States, a few minority groups are African Americans, American Indians, Asians, Hispanics, and others. The struggles and/or discrimination these groups face is affordable housing, healthcare barriers, food insecurity, etc. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in Princeton, New Jersey where they focus on access to health care, public health, health equity, leadership and training, and changing systems to address barriers to health, say “Roughly half of Black (55%) and Latino (48%) households, nearly two-thirds (63%) of Native American households, and one-third (29%) of Asian households in the U.S. say they are facing serious financial problems paying off credit cards and loans, affording food, medical care or prescription drugs, and problems paying mortgage or rent, as compared with 38% of White households.

Many of the challenging aspects that minorities face in regards to their health are due to health disparities, unfavorable social determinants of health, lack of cultural competence in healthcare workers, and health inequities. 

Health disparities refer to the differences in access to healthcare, burden of disease, and rates of disability and mortality among certain populations. In the U.S., many individuals from racial and ethnic minority groups unfortunately experience significant health disparities, often having to deal with the highest rates of disease and suffer poorer health than non-marginalized groups. Social determinants of health are factors that influence an individual’s health and well-being, such as poverty, lack of access to quality education, housing insecurity, and systemic discrimination. Cultural competence is the ability to communicate and interact effectively with people from diverse cultural backgrounds and involves understanding one's own cultural worldview, developing positive attitudes toward cultural differences, and gaining knowledge of various cultural practices and beliefs. Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to achieve their highest level of health and requires addressing systemic barriers to health, such as discrimination, poverty, and lack of access to resources like good jobs, education, housing, healthcare, and safe environments.

Statistically, as explained by the Health Policy Institute of Georgetown University, “among older adults, a higher proportion of African Americans and Latinos, compared to Whites, report that they have at least one of seven chronic conditions such as asthma, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, or anxiety/ depression.”

Many issues due to lack of cultural competence include language/communication barriers, low-literacy, etc. Georgetown adds that “of the more than 37 million adults in the U.S. who speak a language other than English, some 18 million people (48%) report that they speak English less than “very well.”

When it comes to language and communication barriers can affect the amount and quality of health care received. For example, Spanish-speaking Latinos are less likely than Whites to visit a physician or mental health provider, or receive preventive care, such as a mammography exam or influenza vaccination. Health service use may also be affected by the availability of interpreters. Among non-English speakers who needed an interpreter during a health care visit, less than half (48%) report that they always or usually had one.

We can resolve these issues that bring out these health disparities like expanding insurance coverage, access to care for example language barriers, utilizing telehealth services where it can be a relief for those with mobility issues and lack of transportation, improve cultural competence among healthcare professionals, diverse healthcare workforce, and so much more. 

Within the healthcare system in the U.S., there are major disparities affecting minorities. Notably, African Americans fare better than White people for some cancer screening and incidence measures, although they have higher rates of cancer mortality. Despite worse measures of health coverage and access and social determinants of health, hispanic people fare better than white people for some health measures, including life expectancy, some chronic diseases, and of cancer incidence and mortality. 

Here are some statistics that show the healthcare inequalities among minorities according to the Kaiser Family Foundation now known as KFF, it is a non-profit organization that focuses on national health issues such as COVID-19, mental health, medicaid, medicare, and others: 

• - Nonelderly American Indians and Alaska Natives (19%) and Hispanic (18%) people were more than twice as likely as their White counterparts (7%) to be uninsured as of 2022.

• - Among adults with any mental illness, Hispanic (40%), Black (38%), and Asian (36%) adults were less likely than White adults (56%) to receive mental health services as of 2022.

• - Roughly, six in ten Hispanic (63%), AIAN (63%), and Black (58%) adults went without a flu vaccine in the 2022-2023 season, compared to less than half of White adults (49%).

• - AIAN (67.9 years) and Black (72.8 years) people had a shorter life expectancy compared to White people (77.5 years) as of 2022, and AIAN, Hispanic, and Black people experienced  declines in life expectancy than White people between 2019 and 2022, with the exception of 2021 to 2022, where all racial and ethnic groups experienced a small increase in life expectancy.

• - Black (10.9 per 1,000) and AIAN (9.1 per 1,000) infants were at least two times as likely to die as White infants (4.5 per 1,000) as of 2022. Black and AIAN women also had the highest rates of pregnancy-related mortality where the rate was 22.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2022, compared to 32.9 in 2021. 

  
  

Every year during the month of April, National Minority Health month raises awareness about the importance of improving the health of racial and ethnic minority communities and reducing health disparities. It encourages action through health education and early detection and control of disease complications. The origin of National Minority Health Month was the 1915 establishment of National Negro Health Week by Booker T. Washington. Washington stressed the importance of health among African Americans especially in a time where he and others in the 20th century dealt with discrimination in the United States. He spoke to local health departments, schools, churches, businesses, professional associations, and influential organizations in the African-American community as he called it to “unite in one great National Health Movement.” It became the month-long initiative that is now known as National Minority Health Month and to raise health equity for all and awareness about the health disparities that continue to affect racial and ethnic minorities. In 2002, National Minority Health Month received support from the U.S. Congress with a concurrent resolution that it should be established to promote educational efforts on the health problems currently afflicting minorities and other populations experiencing health disparities. 

The importance of addressing healthcare disparities among minorities whether locally, nationally, and around the world, it is important to be made aware and to be mindful of others dealing with barriers and lack of resources and support that are not given to them and seeing them feel excluded from receiving adequate health care and to live long, health and prosperous lives. We should help one another to understand each other’s cultures, beliefs, values, and morals and to not be ignorant of one’s racial or ethnic differences. 

References: 

National Minority Health Month. (n.d.). NIMHD. https://www.nimhd.nih.gov/programs/edu-training/nmhm/#:~:text=Celebrated%20every%20year%20in%20April%2C%20National%20Minority,early%20detection%20and%20control%20of%20disease%20complications.

Minority Health Matters: Celebrating National Minority Health Month. (2025, April 1). MHEDS. https://mheds.org/?p=8294

Be the Source of Better Health: National Minority Health Month. (2024, July 19). Minority Health. https://www.cdc.gov/minority-health/features/nmhm.html

Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (2025, March 11). Personal experiences of U.S.Racial/Ethnic minorities in today’s difficult times. RWJF. https://www.rwjf.org/en/insights/our-research/2022/08/personal-experiences-of-u-s-racial-ethnic-groups-in-todays-difficult-times.html#:~:text=Households%20across%20America%20are%20facing,Latino%2C%20and%20Native%20American%20families.

Cultural Competence in Health Care: Is it important for people with chronic conditions? - Health Policy Institute. (2019, February 13). Health Policy Institute. https://hpi.georgetown.edu/cultural/