Risks of Developing Diabetes Among US Latinos
According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, diabetes has hit the epidemic proportion in the United States. The cases of occurrences of this disease show that the prevalence of diabetes has been on the rise over the past twenty years. However, Basilio, Kwan, and Towers (2016) explain that the burden of diabetes is not equally distributed throughout the populations. This disease is more prevalent among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos than among other communities. Foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos get more complications of diabetes compared to the non-Latinos, Spanish born in the United States, and English speakers. Low levels of education, poor infrastructure, racism, and unemployment are the factors that promote a high perception risk of diabetes development. As a result, there is a high risk of developing diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos than among other populations in the USA because of the high health inequality experience in this community.
Bayley (2014) studies the causes of diabetes among American people. The author has found that fifty percent of adult foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos are at a higher rate of developing chronic diseases such as type two diabetes compared to adults of the same age from other communities (Mercader & Florez, 2017). The high rate of diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos is caused by the lack of awareness on how they should live to fight the disease. Good preventive healthcare practices, which are passed down to people through health information guides, form the main backbone of fighting diabetes. Bolin, Ory, Wilson, and Salge, (2013) explain diabetic healthcare sources are the main stream of information through which people can get help to avoid contracting the disease. Therefore, the government ensures that it disseminates the required information to people. However, this is one of the biggest problems among the Latino community especially those who speak Spanish. Such information is absent for this group, making it hard for them to know how they should live to avoid contracting the disease. Consequently, most of them end up suffering from type 2 diabetes.
Another main reason why diabetes is prevalent among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos is because of disparities in education. Braithwaite (2018) asserts that education acts as the main eye-opener to the whole community. When the society is composed of the education people, the living standard of the entire community is raised through sharing information between the land individuals and the unlearned ones. However, when a community does not value or experience low education systems, they tend to lack a lot of knowledge about certain aspects of life such as health. This fact takes place in many Latino communities.
According to González, Vega, Rodríguez, Tarraf, and Sribney, (2009), the United States has witnessed a lot of improvement in education among all communities. Despite such improvement, some communities such as Spanish and Latinos still record the lowest rate of individuals who finish their education. The rate of school dropout is very high among Latino communities compared to other communities. Consequently, the community performs very little or no progress in trying to close the social and economic gap between them and the white people (Basilio, Kwan & Towers, 2016). A study carried out by the United States Government Accountability Office reported that there were a huge number of schools distinguished by poverty together with race. The report went further to explain that most of those schools were from the Spanish and Latino communities, and they had the highest number of school dropouts.
Another study carried out by Joiner et al., (2016) also find that the number of students dropping out of school in the Latino community has increased from nine percent to sixteen percent. Therefore, the community comprised of foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos has continuously remained behind on matters concerning health. This is because education takes place on various levels such as within the society where the learned people teach others how to take care of themselves. As a result, problem-solving, health information, as well as coping with certain health conditions are not present within this community, thereby leading to the prevalence of diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos.
Still, education remains the main factor causing the high rate of diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos. Mercader & Florez, (2017) explain that education attainment shapes employment opportunities within the society. For example, when there are shortages of doctors within a given community, the individual with such expertise will be able to fill such gaps, thus, promoting health conditions within their community. When the Latino community does not produce doctors or nurses to help them improve their health conditions, people are forced to continue suffering from various health infections. Pereira (2017) asserts that education helps to raise the standard of living of the entire community duty to increase earning and production. The families are able to get access to proper healthcare due to the increased earnings. However, such a scenario does not refer to the foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos communities. As a result of high school dropouts, many young people are forced to look for menial jobs, which cannot sustain them and enable them to have proper health coverage. Consequently, they are more exposed to a higher risk of contracting various chronic diseases such as type two diabetes.
Moreover, the perception of a high risk for developing diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos is further caused by income and wealth disparity. Income inequality is constantly rising in the United States with the poor class continuing to increase in number. Even though the country has experienced an overall increase in household earnings in the past decades, poor and lower-class families have not benefited from such a rise. The low income experienced by families has further brought the issue of low life expectancy (Joiner et al., 2016). More specifically, the problem of low life expectancy has been triggered by the fact that people depend on income to cater for the most basic things in their lives such as getting health insurance and feeding the family. As a result of low income, people are blocked from accessing quality health services and they cannot know how to protect themselves from some of these diseases.
On the same note, income inequalities lead to the concentration of poverty within the society. Shen et al., (2016) assert that the concentration of poverty in some of the communities shapes the kind of lives people from that region live. Slomski (2017) also finds that poverty affects all ethnic communities across the country. For instance, Latino communities are more affected compared to other communities due to the fact they have low education attainment; thus, the level of unemployment experienced in such communities is low. Given the fact that concentrated poverty affects the education of young people raised in poor families, many young people are unable to clear their education; thus, they get back to the villages and inherit the trend of poverty. With such trends, some of the communities like the Latino have found it hard to access the required health services. Consequently, these people have known little about their health condition, making them experience the highest diabetes rates.
Daar, Alvarez-Estrada, and Alpert, (2017) look at the role of race and gender differences in the relationship between mortality and poverty. They find that African American adult males, who live below the poverty line, have higher risk factors of contracting diabetes compared to their White counterparts. They went ahead to explain that even though the risk factor of African Americas is considered higher, it cannot reach those experienced by Latino Americans. These scholars explain that most Latino people live below the poverty line; hence, they are mostly exposed to factors that cause some of chronic diseases. Junqueira, Rotberg, Gosdin, Meija, and Umpierrez, (2016) support these findings by explaining that low-income earners are more prone to suffering from various chronic diseases such as diabetes. The increase in such cases is due to the inability to have access to proper medication or access to health information. When people lack money to sustain themselves, they tend to ignore a lot of things. Such people tend to concentrate only on basic things such as food; hence, they come to realize that they are very sick at a later stage when some of these diseases cannot be prevented. It is the reason for high mortality rates within most Latino communities.
There are a lot of researchers such as Shapiro (2018) who have established how income disparities affect the health of an individual as well as their families. For instance, greater income opens various opportunities to afford quality healthcare services as well as health information that an individual can use to prevent certain diseases. On the other hand, lack of proper income leads to stress, loss of hope, and even harmful physiological effects on an individual, which further expose a person’s health to other risks (González et al., 2009). Therefore, due to the fact that most of Latino people are found in the lower quarter of the economic circle, they are exposed to hardship and stress. These people constantly survive to make a living. This is the reason why diabetes is prevalent among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos. Consequently, it is true that income and wealth disparities among the Latino people are one of the causes of the rise of diabetes within their community.
The disparity in the level of employment among Latino people is one of the significant factors that lead to the prevalence of diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos. Wardhany (2018) states that employment disparities are a phenomenon experienced across different ethnic groups and racial communities within the United States despite the overall progress made to reduce the unemployment problems. The communities such as the Latinos are the ones experiencing high unemployment rates compared to the other communities. During the second quarter of 2016, the highest level of unemployment experienced in the United States was about thirteen percent. Out of this percentage, the highest rate of the community with the highest unemployment level was among African Americans followed by the Hispanic communities (Shen et al., 2016). This means that most of the young people in the communities do not hold any kind of job.
Even being employed, the Latino communities experience systematic differences in salaries and wages by gender, ethnicity, and race. It is usually a norm in most organizations that White people will be paid higher salaries compared to Latino people and African Americans even if they are doing the same job. The same is also witnessed with gender, where some organization values men higher compared to women. As a result, most people from Latino communities tend to wallow in poverty due to low earnings. The earnings are sometimes so low that they can only afford to buy food and other necessities without thinking that they should buy health insurance coverage. Consequently, when these people become sick, they are forced to look for treatment from some of the health facilities, which cannot help them know their diabetic status. Hence, it leads to the high rise of this disease among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos.
Besides, the nature of work together with the conditions of the working environment is also the reason why diabetes is prevalent among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos. Most Latino Americans are not learned, and they do dirty and menial jobs. It increases the factors for acquiring diabetes. For example, some of these people are drivers who move to some of the hazardous areas. Consequently, they become more stressed, which makes them suffer from hypertension, a factor that opens the gates for diabetes in an individual’s body. On the other hand, some of these people work in certain companies, which do not provide them with lunch or food allowance, making people eat anything they find. With such consumption during work time, these workers gain abnormal weight, and eventually, they end up suffering from diabetes.
Daar, Alvarez-Estrada, and Alpert, (2017) find that psychological aspects of one’s job are also a factor that influences the occurrence of this disease. For example, unfriendly work schedules, commitment to work, and long hours of work together with poor working conditions add psychological pressure on a person, raising their blood pressure and eventually leading to the contraction of diabetes. The same situation is witnessed with most Latino people. The kind of working conditions as well as their work schedules exposes them to a lot of pressure. In many circumstances, those people who earn less are the people working hard. They are usually forced to wake up early in the morning before others start their duties. With such conditions, these people find it difficult to keep their pressure down, hence, the emergence of diabetes.
Racism is another factor that leads to the increased cases of diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos. Colon, Giachello, McIver, Pacheco, and Vela (2013) explain that racism is a big umbrella that comprises certain mechanisms that work at the interpersonal, systematic, intrapersonal, as well as institutional levels. At the systematic and institutional levels, a community may experience racism when the government or the authorities operating in the area intentionally neglect the society (Pereira, 2017). The neglect can be seen in poor roads, lack of health facilities, and even lack of schools in the area. Such characteristics of neglect of the communities to some percentage are witnessed in the Latino communities. When the number of schools in this area is compared to another white-dominated region, the quality and the resources available differ a lot. In the Latino communities, the schools are not well stocked with adequate resources to help a teacher carry out their mandates as well as help learners get what they are being taught.
The same is also witnessed with the hospitals. In fact, most of the hospitals in these communities are poorly operated. Health facilities tend to lack some of the resources required. For instance, the number of nurses and doctors within the health facilities found in Latino communities is fewer compared to those found in towns and cities. The equipment and devices used for treating some of the chronic diseases such as diabetes are also absent in most of the hospitals. Consequently, the Latino people are denied the quality of health care the other part of the country is receiving (Slomski, 2017). Therefore, they will have to travel to towns or cities to access the kind of health services that will help them overcome the effects of this disease. However, the lack of roads and high transport costs may prevent people from seeking for healthcare assistance in the cities. Consequently, many people leave their lives for fates; hence, it leads to the high prevalence of diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos.
Therefore, there are a lot of things the government together with the local authorities must do to ensure that the rise of diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos is reduced. The government can reduce the prevalence of this disease among the Latino community by means of ensuring that there is proper education for everyone within the country irrespective of where they have come from. When education is availed to the Latino community, the rates of school dropout will be reduced, while the level of literacy within the community will rise. Furthermore, the increase of intellectuals within the society will increase the movement of health information; thus, everyone will have the ability to fight this disease.
Again, another way the government can help the foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos community in fighting diabetes is by ensuring that all traits of racism and biasness are eliminated totally within the country. The government can do this by providing equal social enmities such as schools, health facilities, and even the construction of roads in all parts of the counties (Bolin et al., 2013). Thus, institutions such as hospitals will be readily available for everyone, making it easier for all individuals to access proper treatments. Moreover, all hospitals will also be equipped with the necessary tools and resources needed to provide quality services. In the end, people will not have to move to towns and cities to look for treatment, but they will periodically go for check-ups as a way to fight diabetes.
Lastly, the government can ensure that diabetes experienced by the Latino people is eliminated by coming up with a minimum wage bill, which will ensure that every employed person is paid an amount that can enable them to buy health insurance coverage (Colon et al., 2013). Such policies should also ensure that the work schedule and working environment are conducive so that no employee is exposed to a hazardous environment. These policies should be employed equally without looking at the race, gender, or ethnicity of an individual.
It is evident through this research that there is a high risk of developing diabetes among foreign-born Spanish-speaking US Latinos than among other populations in the USA, because of the high health inequality experience in this community. One of the factors that causes the increased case of diabetes among the Latino people is the rate of unemployment experienced in this community. Another factor is racism, where the government together with other authorities intentionally neglects these communities making it lack some of the fundamental amenities, such as hospitals, roads, and even schools. Other factor contributing to the increase of diabetes in the Latino community includes lack of education, income disparities, and poverty among others.