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Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Access to and Quality of Health Care
Published: September 2007
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Eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health is a major national objective, one of two overall goals for Healthy People 2010. Efforts to eliminate health disparities must incorporate strategies to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health care as well. These strategies are also a critical component of overall efforts to improve health care quality.
There is a pressing need for policy-makers to understand the degree to which race and ethnicity or other factors (e.g., insurance coverage, income, etc.) contribute to health care disparities. This knowledge will help shape interventions to eliminate disparities. This synthesis presents findings on the size and causes of racial and ethnic disparities in access to care followed by findings on disparities in quality of care.
Key Findings:
- Racial and ethnic disparities in access to and quality of care are pervasive although not universal. The largest access disparities are for Spanish-speaking Hispanics.
- Insurance coverage, income and other factors explain a portion of the disparities, but racial and ethnic gaps in access and quality remain after accounting for these factors.
- After adjusting for other factors, disparities in recommended processes of care—the appropriate use of screening tests, medications, and laboratory tests—tend to be small or nonexistent. Disparities are larger for intermediate outcomes, newer therapies and invasive outcomes even after adjusting for other factors.
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- Policy Brief Figure 1: Percent of white, black and Hispanic adults lacking a usual source of care
- Policy Brief Figure 2: Percent of adults whose usual source of care is a physicians office
- Research Report Figure 1: Racial and ethnic differences in reporting no usual source of care
- Research Report Figure 2: Adjusted Hispanic-white differences (percent) in reporting no usual source of care in studies that include language
- Research Report Figure 3: Percent of adults whose usual source of care is a physicians office
- Research Report Figure 4: Racial and ethnic differences in reporting no ambulatory care visit
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Synthesis Project
The Synthesis Project is an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to produce user-friendly briefs and reports that synthesize research findings on perennial health policy questions. These products give policy-makers reliable information and new insights to inform complex policy decisions.
Learn more about Synthesis Project.