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Chapter 3

VITAL SIGNS: DISPARITIES; Care After Heart Attack Appears Less Than Equal

VITAL SIGNS: DISPARITIES; Care After Heart Attack Appears Less Than Equal

This activity contains 3 questions.

	What demographics have been show to impact the care given heart attach victims?   ds w d Gender, race, and age.

	What empirical data are available to support the claim that treatment disparities exist amount demographically different groups?   "Researchers examining Medicare and Medicaid statistics found that compared with Caucasians, African-Americans were 69 percent as likely to be transferred. Hispanics were 53 percent as likely. Compared with men, women were 84 percent as likely to be transferred, and compared with people ages 65 to 69, those 85 to 90 were only 25 percent as likely to be moved to another hospital." ff dd dd

	How are these disparities in treatment explained?   Dr. Jeffrey S. Berger, the lead author of the study and a cardiology fellow at Duke, said the reasons for the treatment variations were complex and poorly understood. "Unfortunately...'we still find disparities in the ways patients are handled once they come in with acute heart attacks, so that women and minorities are less likely to be transferred.'' ''We can't conclusively state that racism is a cause here,'' Dr. Berger continued. ''What we can say is that these disparities exist and that when they affect medical care, we have to do something about them. We have to confront the issue and find out where the problem lies.'' dd xxX

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