| Course | HCR 302 Social Determinants of Health |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 1 |
| Paper type | Policy critique memo-paper |
| Length | About 1,065 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Arizona State University |
| Program | BS in Health Care Coordination |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for HCR 302 Module 1
Useful but Not Enough: A Health Equity Critique of the HHS Disparities Action Plan for Our Health Department
Student Name
BS in Health Care Coordination, Arizona State University
HCR 302: Social Determinants of Health
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Useful but Not Enough: A Health Equity Critique of the HHS Disparities Action Plan for Our Health Department
Purpose of This Briefing
You asked me to review the HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities before our department aligns its strategic plan with federal priorities. This paper summarizes the plan and its 2011-2014 implementation progress report, critiques it through a health equity lens and recommends how we should use it. I work in our chronic disease prevention program, where we see daily how differences in insurance, neighborhood and income shape who develops and controls hypertension and diabetes.
Summary of the Plan
Background. HHS released the plan in April 2011 as its first strategic plan to eliminate health disparities, describing it as the most comprehensive federal commitment to date (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2015). The background section recognizes that racial and ethnic minority populations carry more than their share of illness, disability and early death, takes from Healthy People 2020 the idea that a disparity is a difference in health rooted in social, economic or environmental disadvantage and names the social determinants of health, including education, employment, housing and income, as underlying causes.
Opportunities. The plan presents the Affordable Care Act as its foundation and opportunity, citing Medicaid expansion, the insurance marketplaces and data standards for race, ethnicity, language, sex and disability status. It also draws on the Institute of Medicine's finding that minority patients receive lower-quality care even with the same insurance (Smedley et al., 2003).
Vision and structure. Its vision is a nation free of disparities in health and health care. It sets four Secretarial priorities, including assessing the impact of all HHS policies on disparities and improving data, and five goals: transform health care; strengthen infrastructure and workforce; advance health, safety and well-being; advance scientific knowledge; and increase the efficiency, transparency and accountability of HHS programs.
Focus: Goal I, Transform Health Care
Goal I aims to expand coverage and access and improve quality for racial and ethnic minority populations. Its strategies include reducing disparities in insurance coverage through Medicaid expansion and the marketplaces, expanding access to primary care and improving quality through measurement and incentives. The progress report notes that 29 states including the District of Columbia had expanded Medicaid when it was written (HHS, 2015). Coverage matters: a review of recent evidence concluded that insurance improves access to care, financial security and some health outcomes, including mortality in several studies (Sommers et al., 2017).
Equity or Disparity?
The plan is framed around disparities: measuring differences between groups and reducing them. That framing has value, because it requires data and accountability. But a health equity lens asks a further question: are the differences unfair and avoidable, and what produces them (Whitehead, 1992)? The plan's background names the social determinants as underlying causes, yet Goal I's strategies stay inside the health care system. Braveman and Gottlieb (2014) argue that lasting improvement means looking upstream, past behaviors and medical care, to the economic and social arrangements that determine who is exposed to risk and who has opportunity. Measured against that standard, Goal I treats access to care as the main lever, when access explains only part of the gap. Even health care use depends on conditions outside it: among low-income adults, those facing unstable housing or food insecurity more often put off care, go without medicines and end up in emergency departments (Kushel et al., 2006).
The plan also rarely names racism. Jones (2000) distinguishes institutionalized, personally mediated and internalized racism, and Bailey et al. (2017) describe how structural racism in housing, credit, education and criminal justice produces health inequities. A plan that counts disparities without naming these structures risks treating symptoms. The report would be strengthened by an explicit equity goal, a commitment to examine structural causes and community voice in setting priorities.
Which Levels of Change Will It Influence?
Of the four levels of change discussed in class, personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional, Goal I works mainly at the institutional level: coverage rules, payment incentives and quality measures change how systems behave. It may influence the interpersonal level through cultural competency standards and workforce diversity, but it has little to say about cultural change in organizations or about the personal level, how staff understand their own assumptions. For our department, this means federal policy can move resources and rules, but changing how our staff and partners think about root causes will be our job.
Which Driver of Transformation Applies?
Of the drivers discussed in class, information, policy, training and staff development, community engagement and dialogue, I believe community engagement is most applicable to implementing Goal I locally. Coverage gains depend on enrollment, and enrollment depends on trust. Evidence from community settings shows that care delivered through trusted community institutions can achieve large improvements: in Black barbershops, blood pressure fell far more when barbers connected men with pharmacist care than with advice alone (Victor et al., 2018). Information and policy are necessary, but without engagement they reach the people who already use the system. In practice, our department could partner with churches, barbershops and community health workers to enroll residents in coverage and connect them to primary care, and could invite those partners to help choose which disparities we address first.
Reflection
Writing this critique changed how I see my own program. I have measured our success by screening numbers and clinic referrals, which are disparity measures. The equity lens made me ask why the neighborhoods with the lowest control rates are also those with the least investment, and whether our program could advocate for changes in housing or food access instead of only referring people to care. Marmot (2005) argues that the social gradient in health reflects the conditions of daily life; my work will be stronger if it addresses those conditions too.
Recommendation
The plan is beneficial, not harmful, to our efforts, but it is not sufficient. I recommend that we (1) use the plan's data priority to justify better race, ethnicity and language data in our programs; (2) use Goal I to support enrollment and primary care partnerships with community organizations; (3) add an explicit health equity statement to our strategic plan that names structural causes; and (4) create a community advisory group to help set priorities. In this way, the national plan becomes a foundation for a root-causes agenda rather than its limit.
References
Bailey, Z. D., Krieger, N., Agénor, M., Graves, J., Linos, N., & Bassett, M. T. (2017). Structural racism and health inequities in the USA: Evidence and interventions. The Lancet, 389(10077), 1453-1463. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(17)30569-X
Braveman, P., & Gottlieb, L. (2014). The social determinants of health: It's time to consider the causes of the causes. Public Health Reports, 129(Suppl. 2), 19-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/00333549141291S206
Jones, C. P. (2000). Levels of racism: A theoretic framework and a gardener's tale. American Journal of Public Health, 90(8), 1212-1215. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.90.8.1212
Kushel, M. B., Gupta, R., Gee, L., & Haas, J. S. (2006). Housing instability and food insecurity as barriers to health care among low-income Americans. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21(1), 71-77. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2005.00278.x
Marmot, M. (2005). Social determinants of health inequalities. The Lancet, 365(9464), 1099-1104. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(05)71146-6
Smedley, B. D., Stith, A. Y., & Nelson, A. R. (Eds.). (2003). Unequal treatment: Confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care. National Academies Press.
Sommers, B. D., Gawande, A. A., & Baicker, K. (2017). Health insurance coverage and health: What the recent evidence tells us. New England Journal of Medicine, 377(6), 586-593. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsb1706645
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2015). HHS action plan to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities: Implementation progress report 2011-2014. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/migrated_legacy_files//151711/DisparitiesActionPlan.pdf
Victor, R. G., Lynch, K., Li, N., Blyler, C., Muhammad, E., Handler, J., Brettler, J., Rashid, M., Hsu, B., Foxx-Drew, D., Moy, N., Reid, A. E., & Elashoff, R. M. (2018). A cluster-randomized trial of blood-pressure reduction in Black barbershops. New England Journal of Medicine, 378(14), 1291-1301. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1717250
Whitehead, M. (1992). The concepts and principles of equity and health. International Journal of Health Services, 22(3), 429-445. https://doi.org/10.2190/986L-LHQ6-2VTE-YRRN
HCR 302 Module 1 instructions, in plain terms
The Transformation Paper is HCR 302's capstone and is worth 100 of the course's 550 points, the same as the group project. The syllabus sets the scene: you are a mid-level health administrator presenting a summary and critique of the HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities to a director who is supportive but not well informed about health inequity. You first identify the part of the health system where you work or hope to work, then review the report's introduction and background, new opportunities and vision and purpose, and focus on one of its five goals. Four questions follow, on equity versus disparity, the level of change the report can influence, the most applicable driver of transformation and your final recommendation. Aim for five to eight double-spaced pages of body text; the title page and references sit outside that range, and ten or more of the APA references have to be primary sources.
Inside the HCR 302 Module 1 example
Written as a briefing to a director, the sample opens with its purpose and the writer's setting in a county chronic disease program. A summary covers the plan's background, opportunities and vision, and a focus section examines Goal I with evidence on coverage. The four required questions each receive their own section: the equity critique draws on definitions of equity, the causes of the causes and frameworks on racism; the levels-of-change section places Goal I mainly at the institutional level; and the drivers section argues for community engagement with an example. A reflection on the writer's own program precedes four numbered recommendations, and the reference list holds ten primary sources, meeting the syllabus minimum.
Where the marks sit in the HCR 302 Module 1 rubric
The syllabus describes an outstanding paper as one that applies cited course concepts and content to the critique, includes personal reflection, insight and growth, shows clear writing with proper citations, runs 5 to 8 pages and includes at least ten APA references from primary sources. Rubrics usually also reward an accurate summary of the report, a focused treatment of one goal, a direct answer to each of the four questions and a recommendation that follows from the critique. Papers lose credit when they summarize without critiquing, when equity and disparity are used interchangeably, when levels of change or drivers are named without explanation, when reflection is missing and when the reference minimum is not met.
HCR 302 Module 1 help from the desk
Read the report itself, not a summary, and note page numbers for the sections the prompt names. Choose the goal that fits your chosen workplace, since your critique will be more concrete. Define equity and disparity in your own words before applying them. For the levels of change and drivers, use the exact categories from class and explain why. Make the reflection specific to your own work. Count your primary sources before submitting; course readings and peer-reviewed articles count, but news sites usually do not. The desk can help you check your structure against the four questions. Finally, write for your director as the syllabus asks: plain, persuasive and honest about the report's strengths as well as its gaps.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Arizona State University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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HCR 302 Module 1 questions, answered
Where can I find a free HCR 302 Module 1 sample paper?
This page has a full HCR 302 Module 1 sample: a transformation paper critiquing the HHS Disparities Action Plan through a health equity lens.
What does the HCR 302 transformation paper ask?
To summarize and critique the HHS Action Plan to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities for your director, apply a health equity lens to one goal and recommend how to use it.
How long is the HCR 302 transformation paper?
The body runs five to eight double-spaced pages, and the reference list needs ten or more primary sources in APA style.
What are the five goals of the HHS Disparities Action Plan?
Transform health care; strengthen infrastructure and workforce; advance health, safety and well-being; advance scientific knowledge; and increase efficiency, transparency and accountability.
What is the difference between health equity and health disparity?
A disparity describes a difference between groups; equity asks whether the difference is unfair and avoidable and addresses its causes.