Medical organizations attack disparities on many fronts

Recruitment of minorities into health care professions and improving patient-physician communications are among the goals aimed at reducing such barriers.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Aug. 23/30, 2004.

Working independently on some projects and collaboratively on others, organized medicine is putting its full force behind eliminating health care disparities among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States.

At both the leadership and grassroots levels, programs and studies are being undertaken to publicize the issue of disparities while seeking the best way to reduce and eventually eliminate them.

In one of the most recent efforts to highlight the issue, the American College of Physicians published a position paper on disparities this month in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Some of the paper's tenets: All patients deserve high-quality care; providing Americans with affordable insurance is a key to eliminating disparities; quality improvement projects should use race, ethnicity and language measures; a diverse work force is an important part of eliminating disparities; and public education is needed to target products that have a negative impact on minority health.

ACP activities aimed at eliminating disparities include publishing materials designed to help physician-patient communication, signing on to an amicus brief in support of the University of Michigan's consideration of an applicant's race in deciding admissions, and lobbying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to maintain its commitment to minority health issues.

ACP Health Policy Associate Rachel Groman said the ACP programs are a mix of leadership-directed activities originating from the Washington, D.C., office and grassroots movements coming out of state chapters in California and Texas.