Question
Beyond widely reported issues like human rights violations or hospital care standards, what other social issues lack adequate media coverage?
Answer
Beyond the commonly discussed social issues like human rights violations and hospital care standards, several other social issues lack adequate coverage. These include the social exclusion of vulnerable populations in health systems, inadequate health care in prisons, and the integration of social justice in health care evaluations.
Social exclusion in health systems: Vulnerable groups such as ethnic minorities, migrants, and individuals with disabilities often face social exclusion in accessing health care, which undermines efforts towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) (Van Hees et al., 2019; Samuel, Flores and Frisancho, 2020; White, Blaauw and Rispel, 2020). In countries like Guatemala and Peru, marginalised populations encounter dysfunctional health systems that fail to provide promised services and financial protection (Samuel, Flores and Frisancho, 2020).
Health care providers’ attitudes can either advance or impede UHC for migrants, with reports of discrimination and differential treatment in public health facilities (White, Blaauw and Rispel, 2020).
Inadequate health care in prisons: In the U.S., despite a constitutional right to adequate health care for incarcerated individuals, there is a widespread issue of inadequate health care due to shrinking budgets and for-profit health care contracts. This results in preventable illnesses and deaths, highlighting a significant social issue that remains underreported (Hurst, Castaeda and Ramsdale, 2019).
Integration of social justice in health care: There is a growing need to integrate social justice concerns into economic evaluations of health care. This involves addressing fairness in the distribution of health outcomes and policy impacts, which is often overlooked in traditional evaluations (Dukhanin et al., 2018).
Human rights in psychiatric and social care: Human rights violations in psychiatric and social care institutions are prevalent, and systematic monitoring is necessary to ensure compliance with international human rights law (Randall et al., 2012).
These underreported social issues highlight the need for more inclusive health policies and accountability mechanisms to ensure equitable access to health care for all, particularly for marginalised and vulnerable populations. Addressing these issues requires a concerted effort to integrate social justice into health care systems and to improve monitoring and accountability in health care delivery.
References
Van Hees, S., O’Fallon, T., Hofker, M., Dekker, M., Polack, S., Banks, L., & Spaan, E., 2019. Leaving no one behind? Social inclusion of health insurance in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review. International Journal for Equity in Health, 18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-019-1040-0
Samuel, J., Flores, W., & Frisancho, A., 2020. Social exclusion and universal health coverage: health care rights and citizen-led accountability in Guatemala and Peru. International Journal for Equity in Health, 19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-020-01308-y
Hurst, A., Castaeda, B., & Ramsdale, E., 2019. Deliberate Indifference: Inadequate Health Care in U.S. Prisons. Annals of Internal Medicine, 170, pp. 563-564. https://doi.org/10.7326/M17-3154
White, J., Blaauw, D., & Rispel, L., 2020. Social exclusion and the perspectives of health care providers on migrants in Gauteng public health facilities, South Africa. PLoS ONE, 15. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244080
Dukhanin, V., Searle, A., Zwerling, A., Dowdy, D., Taylor, H., & Merritt, M., 2018. Integrating social justice concerns into economic evaluation for healthcare and public health: A systematic review.. Social science & medicine, 198, pp. 27-35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.012
Randall, J., Thornicroft, G., Burti, L., Katschnig, H., Lewis, O., Russo, J., Shaw, T., Wahlbeck, K., & Rose, D., 2012. Development of the ITHACA Toolkit for monitoring human rights and general health care in psychiatric and social care institutions. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 22, pp. 241 – 254. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045796012000467
