________________________________________________________________ Cultural Humility in Healthcare
Occupational Segregation into Low-Paying Jobs. Women are disproportionately represented in certain occupations, especially low-paying jobs. This is due, in part, to the percep- tion of gender roles that assume women’s work is low skilled and undervalued. This is especially true for women of color (Payscale, 2025). Lack of Work-Family Policies. Issues such as insufficient paid family and medical leave and earned paid sick leave impact a woman’s ability to manage work and caregiving. Childcare is expensive and sometimes hard to access. These issues further compound problems associated with work--family challenges. The coronavirus has exacerbated the caregiving burden on women because of essential school and childcare provider closures, which contributes to higher job loss among women (Payscale, 2025). Disability. Disability may cause, as well as be a consequence of, poverty. People with disabilities must deal with barriers to employment as well as lower earnings. Only 16.4% of women who have disabilities were employed in 2018, compared with 60.2% without a disability (Payscale, 2025). Domestic Violence. In the U.S., domestic violence is the cause of women’s losing an average of eight million days of paid work per year. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) has led to lowered rates of gender-based violence in the U.S. thanks to its programs and services. Unfortunately, the programs and services of the VAWA are not able to meet ongoing needs of domestic violence survivors without more funding and an expansion of resources (Payscale, 2025). DISABILITY Physical, intellectual, mental health, and other long-term disabilities constitute another facet of diversity within the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2025), 61 million adults (28.7% of adults) in the U.S. live with a disability. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC, 2024) Enforcement and Litigation Statistics and Agency Financial Report for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, retaliation was the most frequently alleged discriminatory claim, accounting for
55.8% of all charges. Disability (36.1%) was the next most alleged category of discrimination, followed by race and sex. The percent- age of each category decreased or remained stable compared to FY 2024 except for claims of retaliation, disability, color, and genetic information (EEOC, 2024). Table 3 shows the percentage of adults with specific categories of disability in the U.S. The CDC (2025) points out that: • One in four adults (28.7%) have a disability. • One in four women have a disability. • Two in five non-Hispanic, Native American Indians/Alaska Natives have a disability.
Research shows that adults living with disabilities are more likely to smoke, have obesity, have heart disease, and/or diabetes (CDC, 2025). Healthcare professionals must be alert to the diseases linked to disability. These diseases can compound the challenges that people with disabilities face.
People with disabilities face several barriers to accessing health- care. These include the following (CDC, 2025): • One in four persons does not have a primary healthcare provider. (Age group: 18-44 years) • One in four people has an unmet healthcare need because of cost in the past year. (Age group: 18-44 years) • One in six people did not have a routine check-up in the past year. (Age group: 45-64 years) Disability often compounds issues of poverty and access that can lead to an array of health consequences such as substance abuse, domestic violence, malnutrition, and even chronic mental health conditions. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning Population (LGBTQ) The LGBTQ population is another his- torically oppressed group in the U.S. Until the 2015 Supreme
PERCENTAGE OF ADULTS WITH FUNCTIONAL DISABILITY TYPES IN THE U.S Functional Disability Description Percentage Mobility Serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs 12.2% Cognition 13.9%
Serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions
Independent Living
Difficulty doing errands alone
7.7%
Hearing
Deafness or serious difficulty hearing 6.2% Blindness or serious difficulty seeing 5.5%
Vision
Self-Care
Difficulty bathing or dressing
3.6%
Table 3
(CDC, 2025)
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