Racial/ethnic disparities in Healthcare
In our new section of ‘Journal Scan’ we have an interesting paper this week from Archives of Internal Medicine on a long debated topic.
Researchers from Chicago led by Romana Hasnia-Wynia studied the racial/ethnic disparities in Healthcare in an observational study. They studied the data from 123 hospitals on several predetermined measures which included patient counseling.
The results illustrate consistent unadjusted differences between minority and non-minority patients in the quality of care across 8 of 13 quality measures. Expectedly disparities in clinical process of care measures are largely the result of differences in where minority and non-minority patients seek care.
However the disturbing finding is disparities in services requiring counseling like smoking cessation etc exist within hospitals after controlling for site of care, which leaves us with a clear bias in healthcare based on race/ethnicity.
Link to the full text Disparities in Health Care Are Driven by Where Minority Patients Seek Care (Subscription required)
Seeji, Pharm House