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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.

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Citations
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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
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Journal ArticleDOI

Higher cardiovascular disease prevalence and mortality among younger blacks compared to whites

TL;DR: Reducing black/white disparities in cardiovascular disease will require a focus on young and middle-aged blacks, and clinical and socioeconomic factors mediated some, but not all, of the excess cardiovascular disease prevalence among young to middle- aged blacks.
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Racial disparities in the use of revascularization before leg amputation in Medicare patients

TL;DR: Black patients with peripheral arterial disease are much less likely than whites to undergo attempts at limb salvage prior to amputation, and the timing of revascularization relative to amputations was similar between races.
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Racial Disparities Among Patients With Lung Cancer Who Were Recommended Operative Therapy

TL;DR: The findings suggest that distrust, beliefs and perceptions about lung cancer and its treatment, and limited access to care (despite insurance) might have a more dominant role in perpetuating racial disparities than previously recognized.
Journal ArticleDOI

Racial disparities in rectal cancer treatment: a population-based analysis.

TL;DR: The data suggest that treatment disparities may contribute to differences in outcome among racial/ethnic groups with rectal cancer, and they highlight the need for improving access to state-of-the-art surgical care for minority patients withrectal cancer.
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