Health disparities: Are we making progress?

Experts in a range of health care areas describe the work done in recent years.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. Jan. 22, 2007.

The medical community received a wake-up call in 2002 regarding the care given to patients across races and ethnicities. The Institute of Medicine report, "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care," found significant variation by race, even when insurance status, income, age and severity of conditions were comparable.

Four years have passed. It's time to assess progress. But has any been made? Perhaps some, say those on the front lines.

"We've done a pretty good job of building awareness," said Ron Davis, MD, AMA's president-elect. And eliminating health disparities has been taken on as an overarching goal for the national health agenda, Healthy People 2010, he noted.

But there is still a long way to go. Now that the problems are gaining recognition, attention is shifting to resolving them, and many experts are focused on this task. Each of the following was asked whether, in recent years, they have seen progress in eliminating health disparities in their specialties.

Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH, director of the Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, assessed the big picture:

"I think there has been progress made. At the grassroots level, there has been a lot of progress. Hospital task forces or statewide task forces have been set up to better examine the area of disparities.

"The field is in the monitoring phase now. A lot of the research is national, but I think people are interested in knowing what's happening in their practice or hospital.