Research shows that having a health care provider of the same race (or one who speaks the same language as the patient) has been associated with patients being more likely to agree to preventative care. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Black adults are less likely to report being of the same race as their health care providers (22.2%) than white adults (73.8%) or adults of other races (34.4%). That's the key takeaway from a new study by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization that provides data and evidence to help advance upward mobility and equity. Similarly, less than one in four Hispanic/Latinx adults (23.1%) report sharing a racial, ethnic, or language background with their usual health care provider.
Those disparities, researchers say, could lead to a mistrust of health care professionals by Black people and other people of color — resulting in long-term negative implications on patient-provider relationships and patient health outcomes.
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Indeed, prior research shows that having a health care provider of the same race (or one who speaks the same language as the patient) has been associated with patients being more likely to agree to preventative care. It also has been linked to improvements in patient-reported measures of care quality.
"To the extent that patient-provider concordance matters to patients and could help improve health outcomes by improving the patient-provider relationship, changes in policy and practice will be needed to facilitate access to the types of providers patients prefer to see," the study's authors wrote. "However, providers of color are underrepresented in the health care workforce, so improving the diversity of the health care workforce will likely require dismantling historical and ongoing barriers to medical education among underrepresented groups."
Time for a change
Researchers suggest improving access to medical translation services, providing training on culturally competent care, and exploring avenues to invest in diversifying the health care workforce as starting points to address the disparities.
"Barriers such as historical exclusion of Black students from predominantly White medical schools, closures of Black medical schools in the early 1900s, and the high cost of medical education are among the factors that have contributed to the underrepresentation of providers of color in the health care workforce," Dulce Gonzalez, a research associate at the Urban Institute, said in a statement. "Steps to address the imbalance include making medical education more affordable for underrepresented groups, diversifying the health care teams serving people of color and those with limited English proficiency, and holding providers accountable for providing culturally effective care to patients in the language they prefer."
The study, funded by the health-focused philanthropic Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, also found that Hispanic/Latinx adults (55.8 percent) and non-Hispanic/Latinx Black adults (65.6%) were less likely to have a usual health care provider than non-Hispanic/Latinx White adults (70.4%). Issues of trust might come into play there, too.
"Trust is part of the foundation of good patient-provider relationships and is especially important for communities of color, who have long been discriminated against in health care," Jacquelynn Orr, program officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, added in a statement. "Having a provider who looks like you and shares your experiences builds trust. Diversifying the health care workforce and increasing access to culturally competent care are significant opportunities to promote health equity and reduce disparities."
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