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Question: Discuss about the Impacts of Race on Health Policy System. Answer: Introduction Everyone is entitled to quality and good health care services from any medical facility. Your cultural background should not deter you from accessing medical facilities and getting the required treatment. Race can be defined as the grouping of individuals based on their cultural, genetic, physical, social or ancestral traits. Racism is the discrimination, harassment or biases of one race by another who views themselves as superior to the others. Racism in health care leads to differences in access to quality healthcare. The race has been one of the major problems in Canada that have led to poor health care and those affected have difficulties in accessing quality health care because of the diverse cultural backgrounds that they are coming from (Betancourt et al., 2016). It is the responsibility of the government to introduce health policies that are inclusive and considerate for every Canadian citizen. Good health policy system help in improving health care for every individual irrespective of your race and cultural background in health policy system; race is a contributory factor to the success and effectiveness of the system (Tang, Browne, 2008). A health policy system that involves racism leads to poor quality services, inequality in access to health care, dissatisfied patients and increase in a number of patients. Racism has led to an increased number of patients resorting to other alternatives of health care like the tradition health care for the various illnesses. This has also lead to the rise of mortality in patients who are having chronic illnesses and are from the minority communities because of the discrimination and lack of adequate health care. The introduction of inclusive health care policies will help in reducing the mortality rate and improving health care among all Canadian citizens. Racism in Canada's health care policy system The negative beliefs about race and ethinicity are deeply ingrained in the culture of Canada. This popular culture is often associated with devaluing the backs and other non-white residents of Canada. Several research studies have provided evidence that suggests televisions play an important role in establishing this culture of racism. Television shows most often portray black people in a negative way and this has been linked to high levels of racial prejudice. On the other hand, widely read newspapers and books frequently pair the word black with words like poor, lazy, violent, and dangerous. While the word white is often linked to other words such as, progressive, wealthy, educated and successful. These negative messages are adopted by the people unconsciously and they start developing a bias that results in discrimination against the black people and leads to racial inequality. Healthcare professionals, clinicians and administrators of the health policy system are no exception (Alimezelli et al., 2014). Racism in Canada has long existed with the majority of the minority group consisting blacks have resettled in Quebec. Racism in Canada has exceeded many other countries, the minority groups have not fully been recognized by the government (Hutchison, levesque, Strumpf, Coyle, 2011). However much the government today is trying to change the perception and reducing the level of discrimination of the minority groups within its territory. Results from previous studies have reported that biased treatment recommendations exist in the healthcare facilities for black patients, and this has been linked to greater amount of implicit bias among physicians and clinicians. This often leads to poor quality of communication between the healthcare professionals and their clients and results in patient dissatisfaction. The patients who face racial and ethnic discrimination in hospital settings often give low ratings to the quality of care they received and their poor encounters with the doctors. The minority groups in Canada have long suffered because of the poor and limited health facilities in the regions where the minority groups live. This, however, has led to the rise of mortality in the minority groups especially those with chronic illness and also maternal mortality. Several causes of health inequities caused by racism are having less access to social resources such as education, inadequate economic resources, poor housing, engaging in health behaviors that are risky, exposure to environment hazards, stress caused by racism in an environment one lives in, social traumas such as sexual abuse and spousal abuse, programs such as screening being underutilized and having no trust in the healthcare systems (Prus, Tfaily, Lin, 2010). Living in poor neighbourhoods increases the exposure to toxic chemicals and restricts access to healthy foods (Beiser Hou, 2014). This increases the chances of adverse health outcomes among the minorities. Evidences suggest that significant disparities exist in the health outcomes of the racialized people owing to the fact that they do not get equal access to medical care facilities, such as, pediatric wards and veterans hospitals, when compared to the majority of white people (Kim et al., 2013). Therefore, practice of racism in healthcare institutions, bias among caregivers, stereotyping attitude and stigma are the major contributing factors to the incidence of racial inequalities in the healthcares system (Dovidio et al., 2017). This results in a shift in the focus from offering holistic care services to all patients regardless of their race or ethnic backgrounds. The government has the responsibility of playing a major role in reducing racism in Canada by making good policies that does not only favor the "white" people in getting efficient health care but instead come up with policies that ensures that access to primary healthcare is everyone's right irrespective of your race, tribe, color, and cultural background, it should be diversified (Papadopoulos, 2006). Healthcare organizations also have an equal responsibility of ensuring equality in the healthcare facilities. The healthcare organizations can introduce programs that are cultural diversity oriented with the aims of training health practitioners about cultural diversity and competence. This program should focus their attention on the marginalized groups and how they can get quality health care. The healthcare organizations should recruit persons from the minority groups in the health care system to create a free and conducive environment for the minority groups to feel comfortable and safe in the healthcare facilities (Kirmayer Brass, 2016). Most of the trained healthcare practitioners from minority groups often go back to their regions to offer health care services in the available health facilities and this is another way of promoting adequate health care for the minority groups. Ontario Human Right Commission (OHRC) has put in place policies that protect the minority groups from being oppressed and denied equal right to access medical facilities and other government public resources (Deber, Mah, 2014). The Canadian Community Health Survey (2016) provided data that supported the less likelihood of visible minorities in the Canadian community to create contacts with their specialist physicians or to get admitted in hospitals following an episode of illness, when compared to the Whites. Inequalities are consistently found between the Whites and racialized people with regard to hospital admissions, visits to a specialist, and screening tests for cancer, when the former were controlled for income, sex, language, and duration of residence in Canada. An adjustment of health status and socio-demographic features will reduce the existing disparities and increase the likelihood of the minorities to contact their general practitioners and utilize healthcare services. Evidences suggest that there is a profound lack of customary collection of health data that are related to race and ethnicity of the people living in Canada (Siddiqi et al., 2013). Furthermore, the unavailability of race based data in the Canadian cancer registries creates difficulties in ascertaining the impacts of race and ethnic history on the incidence of breast cancer and its survival in Canada. In addition, data reveal that the national population surveys under-represent the presence of immigrants in the population. This also creates difficulties for the minorities to adequately access the exisitig healthcare services (Wang Hu, 2013). Public and policymakers' responsibility The public and policymakers have the responsibility to take up actions in order to eliminate the issue of racism in the healthcare system. Such actions involve creating and increasing public awareness on the issue of racism and its effects on the quality and accessibility of healthcare (Giesbrecht, Crooks, 2016). The awareness can be increased through the support of policies and procedures that address racism, the establishment of community, groups and alliance programs that fight the issue of racism. Increase in the representation of the radicalized groups in the decision-making processes as well as in the organization's structure will help in eliminating the racism in Canada (Clavier, Leeuw, 2013). The public and policymakers should strife in implementing and enforcing policies and procedures that are free from racism. The policymakers should emphasise on the need for collecting standardized data related to ethnicity, race and primary language of all people who are entitled to use the healthcare system. The importance of standardized data collection lies in the fact that it will help the policy makers and the caregivers to identify and eliminate ethnic and racial inequities in healthcare (Cahill Makadon, 2014). Adequate data on the race and ethnicity of the patients and their care providers allow provisions to on patient and provider race and ethnicity would allow researchers to unravel the factors that contribute to inequities. This will also assist them in formulating better healthcare plans that meets the cultural needs of the minorities (Wang, 2014). A routine monitoring of their performances will facilitate in easy identification of discriminatory practices, ensure accountability, help in evaluation of the different therapeutic strategies and will eventually improve patient outcomes. The recruitment and retaining of staff from the minority groups will help in building a culture of diversity in the health, implementation of programs that involve training the practitioners on anti-discriminatory and culturally diverse health care. The availability of interpreters in the facilities will also help eliminate racism in the healthcare system. Support the establishment of acts and policies that address the racism in health care system and also allocate sufficient funds in support of racism research, in conducting discussions with the stakeholders on eradicating the racism in the country (Westhues, Wharf, 2012). The policymakers should ensure the patients exercise their rights to access proper healthcare through the introduction of a complaint box to air their complaints as well as to pro-actively respond to racism. A consideration to form a committee that addresses on racial equality will also help in dealing with the racism problem in the Canadians health policy system (Diehr et al., 2017). The policymakers should adopt cultural competence, which will provide them the ability to deliver healthcare services that meets the cultural, social, and linguistic needs of the minorities (Rajaram Bockrath, 2014). Lack of cultural competence will increase the risk of patients of receiving poor quality care and experiencing negative health outcomes. Some of the common strategies that can be adopted by the policy makers for developing a culturally competent healthcare environment include the following: Arranging for interpreter services Recruiting and retaining staff belonging to the minorities Creating training programs to increase cultural knowledge, awareness and skills Including the family and community members in decision making Incorporating culture-specific attitudes in different health promotion tools Locating clinics in geographical regions that can be easily accessed by the minority groups. Certain guidelines must be adopted by the policymakers to eliminate the healthcare disparities. These policies should focus on enhancing the attitudes of the healthcare professionals in regards to accepting that it is their responsibility to understand the cultural aspects of illness and health of all residents of Canada Recognizing the personal biases that exist against people belonging to different cultures and ethnic backgrounds Respecting and tolerating cultural differences among all patients (Dimick Ryan, 2014). The guidelines should increase the willingness of caregivers to make provisions for easily accessible clinical settings. Setting up accreditation standards will also benefit the minorities as it will enhance the skills of medical students to understand the diverse cultures that exist in the society and will further help them to perceive the different forms of illness and respond to them accordingly (Laymon et al., 2015). Summary The issue of racism, in Canada, cannot be ignored as it deeply affects the health care system. It is a major issue that should be addressed by all the stakeholders who include the government, the healthcare providers, and organizations, the consumers' and the general public. All the stakeholders should unite in implementing and enforcing policies and procedures that upholds equality and fights to eliminate racism in the health care systems. This will lead to appropriate address of all existing racial biases in healthcare delivery. References Alimezelli, H. T., Leis, A., Backman, A., Denis, W., Karunanayake, C. (2014, May). Disparities, Health Services Policies, and Minority Francophone Older Adults in Canada. Inconference Social Policy and Health Inequalities: An International Perspective, QICSS, Montreal(pp. 7-9). Beiser, M., Hou, F. (2014). Chronic health conditions, labour market participation and resource consumption among immigrant and native-born residents of Canada.International journal of public health,59(3), 541-547. Betancourt, J. R., Green, A. R., Carrillo, J. 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