Disparities in Physician Care: Experiences and Perceptions of a Multi-Ethnic America

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Abstract:

This 2007 Harvard School of Public Health/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation survey of 4,334 randomly selected U.S. adults compared perceptions of the quality of physician care among fourteen racial and ethnic groups with those of whites. On each measure examined, at least five and as many as eleven subgroups perceived their care to be significantly worse than care for whites. In many instances, subgroups were at least fifteen percentage points more negative than whites. This was true for Central/South Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans on five of seven measures. Many of the differences remained after socioeconomic characteristics and language skills were controlled for. Likewise, our results provide evidence suggesting that if circumstances and policies changed to provide minority groups with better health insurance coverage, more adequate language skills and assistance, and higher incomes, many of these disparities with whites would likely be narrowed. These findings are similar to earlier research about the experiences of the larger groups of African, Hispanic, and Asian Americans.