Eliminating health care disparities: You can make a difference

Every physician has a role to play, and the AMA has resources to help.

Editorial. Sept. 19, 2005.

A series of studies recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine cast a long shadow over the ongoing fight to eliminate health care disparities.

The studies, which compared the care black Americans are receiving with the care received by whites, found that such disparities are still very much a part of this country's health care system. They show that disparities have narrowed in some areas, including use of beta-blockers and aspirin to treat heart attacks. But the research also found that the gap remained or widened for surgical procedures and treatment of chronic conditions. The NEJM articles follow a federal government report released in July that found that Hispanic children trail white children in the rate at which they receive the combined immunization series.

The American Medical Association and several other medical organizations are committed to reducing this gap. One way they are doing this is through the Commission to End Health Care Disparities. The commission is using four strategies: increasing awareness of disparities, promoting better data gathering, promoting work force diversity and increasing education and training.

Another way the Association hopes to get at the problem is through the ethics opinion drafted by its Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs and passed by the AMA House of Delegates in June. As other CEJA reports have addressed important issues in the past, this timely examination of the issue in terms of professionalism provides a close look at the reasons for health care disparities and a path physicians can take to help eliminate them.