Health Services in the United States of America

By

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, it would give me great pleasure to show my gratitude to my professor, for his propositions, remarks, understanding and patience. It would also be an honor to express gratitude to my parents, my mother, my father, my sister and my brother for their endless support in my life and allowing me to make all my decisions. I would also like to take the opportunity to show appreciation to my co-workers for their expert cooperation on every occasion. I would also like to be grateful to the Department, managers of the university, instructors and students who have supported me throughout this research.

DECLARATION

I declare that the content presented in this thesis/dissertation is, in my understanding and opinion, original and has not been presented for scholarly assessment in the past, either completely or partly, for an academic degree at this educational institution or elsewhere. I would also like to admit that I have studied and understood the principles, prerequisites, processes and guidelines of the University regarding the higher academic degree research award and to my dissertation. I would also like to declare that I have abided by the University's principles, prerequisites, processes and guidelines.

Signed __________________ Date _________________

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT2

DECLARATION3

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION5

1.1 Overview of the topic5

1.2 Background of the topic5

1.3 Purpose of the Study6

1.4 Significance of the Study6

1.5 Research Aims and Objectives6

1.6 Rationale for the study7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW8

2.1 Overview of the Healthcare Industry in USA8

2.2 Health Disparity and Inequality8

2.3 Racial Health Inequalities9

2.4 Socioeconomic factors for Health Disparities10

2.5 Effect of Education on Health Disparity11

2.6 Health Disparities and the Life-course13

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY14

3.1 Overview of the Research Methodology14

3.2 Research Methods14

3.3 Instruments used for Data Collection16

3.4 Validity and Reliability16

3.5 Ethical Concerns17

REFERENCES18

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Overview of the topic

The basic purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader a brief description regarding the topic of the research and present the main ideas behind the dissertation. The research will include the background of the problem, which assists in creating the overview of the topic of the research along with providing definition of the research problem. The title of the topic is Health Services in the USA and the major focus in this research would be on health disparity in USA.

1.2 Background of the topic

In the United States of America, there exists a clear and disconcerting racial disparity in the distribution of good health, which can be seen in differential levels of morbidity and mortality affecting blacks and whites. Previous research has examined the role of SES in shaping racial health disparities and recent studies have looked specifically at the effect of education on health to explain the racial disparity in health. Higher levels of education are robustly associated with good overall health for both blacks and whites and this association has been examined over the life-course. This research explores racial differences in the effect of education on health in general as well as over the life-course. Specifically, this paper examines race differences in the ...