Perceived discrimination and use of preventive health services.

Full Abstract

BACKGROUND:
Little is known about the relation between perceptions of health care discrimination and use of health services.

OBJECTIVES:
To determine the prevalence of perceived discrimination in health care, its association with use of preventive services, and the contribution of perceived discrimination to disparities in these services by race/ethnicity, gender, and insurance status. DESIGN, SETTING,

AND PARTICIPANTS:
Cross-sectional study of 54,968 respondents to the 2001 California Health Interview Survey.

MEASUREMENTS:
Subjects were asked about experience with discrimination in receiving health care and use of 6 preventive health services, all within the previous 12 months.

METHODS:
We used multivariate logistic regression with propensity-score methods to examine the adjusted relationship between perceived discrimination and receipt of preventive care.

RESULTS:
Discrimination was reported by 4.7% of respondents, and among these respondents the most commonly reported reasons were related to type of insurance (27.6%), race or ethnicity (13.7%), and income (6.7%). In adjusted analyses, persons who reported discrimination were less likely to receive 4 preventive services (cholesterol testing for cardiovascular disease, hemoglobin A1c testing and eye exams for diabetes, and flu shots), but not 2 other services (aspirin for cardiovascular disease, prostate specific antigen testing). Adjusting for perceived discrimination did not significantly change the relative likelihood of receipt of preventive care by race/ethnicity, gender, and insurance status.

CONCLUSIONS:
Persons who report discrimination may be less likely to receive some preventive health services. However, perceived discrimination is unlikely to account for a large portion of observed disparities in receipt of preventive care.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Trivedi, Amal N (AN); Ayanian, John Z (JZ);

Affiliation: Division of General Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.

Grants: 5 T32 HP11001-15 (Agency:PHS HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Journal of general internal medicine : official journal of the Society for Research and Education in Primary Care Internal Medicine (J Gen Intern Med), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Jun; vol 21 (issue 6) : pp 553-8

Dates: Created 2006/06/30; Completed 2006/09/11; Revised 2008/11/20;

PMID: 16808735, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.