Health care is the set of services and support that people use to maintain their physical and mental well-being. It encompasses everything from preventing diseases to treating the sick. It can also extend to psychological care. People can get health care through the clinic, hospital, physician’s office, or community centers. It can also be provided in the home, through the internet, or through a variety of other methods. Health care can be accessed by people with private insurance, through government programs, or through employers. The APA’s Division 38 provides research, practice, education, and training that promotes health and access to health care.
A country’s health system can be defined as a complex social institutional structure whose main components are a financing mechanism, a trained and adequately paid workforce, reliable information on which to base decisions and policies, and well-maintained healthcare facilities to deliver medical treatments and services to targeted populations. Health systems differ from one another and reflect the history, culture, and economic conditions of the state in which they develop. These peculiarities can make international comparisons problematic.
In the United States, the health care industry is regulated extensively by government agencies to ensure quality and facilitate the government’s role as a purchaser of care, as well as to limit moral hazard. These regulations can impede supply by restricting the number of providers who offer a particular service, and/or by raising their prices. For example, the use of tight physician fee schedules gives doctors incentives to reduce their own time and other resources spent per patient visit. These hidden costs do not appear in standard measures of health care spending, and thus can mislead policy makers and consumers about the true cost of healthcare.
Many people have difficulty accessing health care. This can be due to financial limitations (such as insurance coverage), geographic or logistical barriers, sociocultural expectations, or personal limitations (such as lack of health literacy or low income). Such obstacles can negatively impact the utilization of healthcare services, efficacy of treatment, and overall outcomes.
Some immigrants have additional difficulties with respecting and using health care in the U.S. For instance, a higher percentage of immigrant adults 18 and older report being uninsured than their U.S-born counterparts, mainly because of lower levels of private coverage and more limited availability of Medicaid. Additionally, they may be reluctant to seek care due to linguistic or cultural concerns or immigration-related fears. In addition, Black and Hispanic immigrant adults are more likely to report a difficulty in receiving respectful and culturally competent care from their healthcare providers than their White counterparts. The same is true for adults with limited English proficiency. These differences can lead to disparate health outcomes for these populations, which are not accounted for in current population-based data on the effectiveness of healthcare. These disparities should be addressed through more comprehensive and effective monitoring of the effectiveness of health care. This would require a more thorough understanding of the factors that influence the effectiveness of health care, and the ways in which these influences vary across different groups.