Health news

Racial gaps in U.S. health care seen in studies

The University of California-Los Angeles study provided further evidence of racial disparities in the U.S. health care system, where blacks and other ethnic groups tend to get less, or inferior, care.

The study, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, covered more than 700,000 patients between 2000 and 2004 who underwent at least one of 10 surgical procedures.

It showed black patients were significantly less likely than whites to receive care at high-volume hospitals in six of the operations, Asians less likely in five, and Hispanics less likely in nine.

Previous studies have shown that patients fare better at high-volume hospitals that develop an expertise with complex procedures such as coronary bypass or lung cancer surgery.

The study found patients enrolled in Medicare, the government-sponsored insurance program for the elderly, were also more likely to be treated at high-volume hospitals than those enrolled in Medicaid, government insurance for the poor, and compared to patients who lacked insurance altogether.

"Since there is significant interest among health care policy experts in improving quality of care by directing patients to high-volume facilities, we hope that addressing key disparities may broaden receipt of care for more patients at these facilities," said the study's senior author, Dr. Clifford Ko.

In a separate study published in the journal, researchers found blacks enrolled in Medicare fared less well than whites when examining the outcome of treatment for common conditions ranging from diabetes to high blood pressure.

Analyzing the records of 431,000 patients enrolled in 151 Medicare programs from 2002 to 2004, the racial disparity persisted even when black and white patients were in the same plans, said study author Amal Trivedi of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.