Race Relations

Race Relations Essay Leslie Biggars The article I choose to read was from American Journal of Public Health, entitled, Counting Accountably: Implications of the New Approaches to Classifying Race/Ethnicity in the 2000 Census. I found the article appealing because of the differences in health care between groups of people. I have long agreed that health care is, in fact, different for everyone. I have read various studies indicating the race can be an issue on the different health problems you are genetically more likely to receive. I have always believed that it does go beyond race but beyond to what? This article introduces to me a theory on to what, in addition to race, can be a factor in the health issues among different people. In the article there were many different thing that were pointed out to me, for instance the fact that names play an important role in how we view things and the fact that there is power in a name or label. According to the article adding the option to have a separation between race and ethnicity will dramatically change the statistics that come out of the research of health care and races being prone to having certain illnesses. Changing the census can change the factors for birth rates, disease, disability, and death. When you change the way we analyze the data and you change the understandings of social inequalities in health. Change racial/ethnic categories, and you change how we view ourselves in accordance with the U.S. federal government. I honestly had no idea that if you change something, that to me seems so insignificant, it could cause such a shift in how we view the statistics on the health care of the nation. I feel that this article, in the sociological sense, is significant because it allows you to evaluate the way the U.S. government views and places labels on us. They place us in to groups based upon our race which is not always an adequate method to make decisions on things like health