Originally published January 31 2006
Massachusetts study uncovers disparity in the care of minority asthma patients
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Publishing their study in Medical Care, investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy discovered that asthma steroid inhalers were less likely to be prescribed to minorities in their first few years on the market.
Inhaled steroid medications for asthma, which have greatly reduced the need for patients to be hospitalized with serious symptoms, were significantly less likely to be prescribed for minority patients and children during the years soon after their introduction.
In the January 2006 issue of the journal Medical Care, investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy report one of the first studies to examine how disparitites in health care change over time, reflecting how the introduction of a new technology differs among racial, ethnic or other groups.
"Previous studies of health care disparities have tended to look at one point in time, but a longer-term picture allows us to see whether disparities are a static or dynamic problem," says Timothy Ferris, M.D., of the MGH Institute for Health Policy, the article's lead author.
In order to track the adoption of inhaled steroid medications for asthma after their introduction in the 1980s, the researchers analyzed data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from 1989 to 1998.
In this annual survey, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, physicians complete a form after outpatient visits during a randomly selected week, answering questions about patients' diagnoses and the treatments provided.
During the first two years studied, minority patients were less than half as likely to receive inhaled steroid medications as were non-minority patients.
While the overall difference in usage between minority and non-minority patients resolved by the mid-1990s, that change reflected increased usage only among African American patients; the low rate of prescription for Hispanic patients remained virtually unchanged.
Further studies of factors underlying these and other disparities are being conducted by the Disparities Solutions Center in the MGH Institute for Health Policy.
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