scispace - formally typeset
Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Racial disparities in surgical care and outcomes in the United States: a comprehensive review of patient, provider, and systemic factors.

TLDR
A comprehensive review of the currently published surgical disparity literature in the United States found that patient factors such as insurance status and socioeconomic status need to be further explored, as studies indicated only a premature understanding of the relationship between racial disparities and SES.
Abstract
It is well known that there are significant racial disparities in health care outcomes, including surgery. However, the mechanisms that lead to these disparities are still not fully understood. In this comprehensive review of the currently published surgical disparity literature in the United States, we assess racial disparities in outcomes after surgical procedures, focusing on patient, provider, and systemic factors. The PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library electronic databases were searched with the keywords: healthcare disparities AND surgery AND outcome AND US. Only primary research articles published between April 1990 and December 2011 were included in the study. Studies analyzing surgical patients of all ages and assessing the endpoints of mortality, morbidity, or the likelihood of receiving surgical therapy were included. A total of 88 articles met the inclusion criteria. This evidence-based review was compiled in a systematic manner, relying on retrospective, cross-sectional, case-control, and prospective studies in the absence of Class I studies. The review found that patient factors such as insurance status and socioeconomic status (SES) need to be further explored, as studies indicated only a premature understanding of the relationship between racial disparities and SES. Provider factors such as differences in surgery rates and treatment by low volume or low quality surgeons also appear to play a role in minority outcome disparities. Finally, systemic factors such as access to care, hospital volume, and hospital patient population have been shown to contribute to disparities, with research consistently demonstrating that equal access to care mitigates outcome disparities.

read more

Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Quality of Health Care

TL;DR: To eliminate racial and ethnic disparities, continued progress will require a collective national will to ensure health care equity through expanded health insurance coverage, support for primary care, and public accountability based on progress toward defined, time-limited objectives using evidence-based, sufficiently resourced, multilevel quality improvement strategies that engage patients, clinicians, health care organizations, and communities.
Journal ArticleDOI

Gynecologic cancer disparities: A report from the Health Disparities Taskforce of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology

TL;DR: Gynecologic cancer disparities exist between Black and White women and much of the evidence suggests that equal care leads to equal outcomes for Black women diagnosed with gynecologic cancers.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI

Do racial/ethnic disparities exist in the utilization of high-volume surgeons for women with ovarian cancer?

TL;DR: Disparities in access to HVS for cancer care exist for minority women and selective referral to high-volume providers should be considered to improve outcomes among minority women.
Journal ArticleDOI

Understanding the Racial Disparity in the Receipt of Endovascular Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair

TL;DR: Racial disparity exists in the management of abdominal aortic aneurysms using new health care technology and efforts aimed at improving this disparity will need to explore the causes of these treatment differences.
Journal ArticleDOI

Inferior outcomes of autogenous infrainguinal bypass in Hispanics: an analysis of ethnicity, graft function, and limb salvage.

TL;DR: The authors' data provides evidence of outcome disparities in HI treated aggressively for their PAD, despite HI rates of CLI equivalent to CA and HI comorbidities less severe than AA, despite high-risk conduit, age <65, CLI, female gender, and AA race being risk factors for failure of primary patency.
Journal ArticleDOI

Racial disparity in the relationship between hospital volume and mortality among patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting.

TL;DR: Blacks have greater reduction in mortality than whites by undergoing CABG at higher-volume hospitals, regardless of operative risk, and these findings should be confirmed using more representative database.
Journal ArticleDOI

Effect of race on colon cancer treatment and outcomes in the Department of Defense healthcare system.

TL;DR: In an equal-access healthcare system, African American race is not associated with an increase in mortality and chemotherapy is administered at rates equal to whites for all stages of colon cancer.
Related Papers (5)