Health services, discrimination and ethnic/racial status: A case study of the problem in México and Colombia

Abstract

Reflecting about and making evidence the relevance of the relationship between ethnic/racial status and use of health services motivated this academic work. We did an approach that articulates theinformation about coverage, access and use of medical services in Colombia and Mexico, and its link with the phenomenon of discrimination, differential access, and poor health conditions of specific populations groups, based on ethnic/racial characteristics that hold afrodescendant and indigenous people. For that reason, this study evaluates the relationship between ethnic/racial status, income level, and use of medical services from racialized populations incomparison to social sectors with different ethnic/racial characteristics. We carried out this task developing severalfundamental aspects, the first, is the construction of a conceptual theoretical framework that describes and poses different models and approaches that explain which are the determinants of the use of medical services. Second, we show some of the elements that integrate the current system of social security of health in Mexico and Colombia. Third, we describe the more general socio-economic, demographic and health characteristics of the population, andwe assess some patterns of health such as the probabilities of doing use or do not of the medical services in the caseof afrodescendant and indigenous people.

Keywords

• Health services
• Discrimination
• Afro-descendant population
• Indigenous population.