Investigations

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care

Racial and ethnic stereotyping and bias in medical care in the United States occur across the full spectrum of disease categories and medical and surgical procedures. The pervasive if sometimes unconscious discrimination is part of a health care system that leaves 40 million Americans without health insurance, and guarantees that US minorities live sicker and die younger than whites. Discrimination endangers not only patients, but also the egalitarian commitments and ethics of medicine, and the democratic principles of society as a whole.

PHR's study, The Right to Equal Treatment: An Action Plan to End Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Clinical Diagnosis and Treatment in the United States, found that compared to whites, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and some Asian American subgroups receive lower quality evaluation and treatment — even when they have the same health insurance coverage.

The report, which examines racial and ethnic differences in medical care from a human rights perspective, contains a massive bibliography of peer-reviewed medical literature documenting the existence of disparities in 17 specific disease categories and includes more than 400 detailed summaries of the most important evidence.

PHR also documented how the federal government has failed to fulfill its legally binding obligations under domestic civil rights laws and international human rights conventions to investigate, monitor, and remedy this pervasive and troubling discrimination.

PHR's report concluded that "top-down" governmental and professional actions must be integrated with community-based grass-roots involvement. It called on the federal government, public and private providers of medical care, professional organizations, accrediting bodies, and grass-roots community advocacy groups to take immediate and specific steps to end racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

Specific recommendations include ongoing reviews of medical care, training health professional schools to recognize and understand the problem, inclusion of efforts to eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in criteria for licensing of health professionals and accrediting health facilities, along with increasing funding for the federal agencies responsible for gathering data and implementing solutions.

Related Links:

Racial Disparities in Health Care: An Annotated Bibliography