Journal of health care for the poor and underserved
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J Health Care Poor Underserved · May 2010
Racial and ethnic disparities within and between hospitals for inpatient quality of care: an examination of patient-level Hospital Quality Alliance measures.
Little is known about whether disparities occur within or between hospitals for national Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) measures. ⋯ Adjusting for between-hospital quality differences accounted for a large proportion of the disparities. Where disparities exist, the primary cause may be that minorities are more likely to receive care in lower-performing hospitals. Policies to reduce disparities should include targeting resources to facilities serving a high percentage of minority patients.
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J Health Care Poor Underserved · Feb 2010
ReviewRace, ethnicity, and pain among the U.S. adult population.
There is reliable evidence that racial/ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately from unrelieved pain compared with Whites. Several factors may contribute to disparities in pain management. Understanding how these factors influence effective pain management among racial/ethnic minority populations would be helpful for developing tailored interventions designed to eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in pain management. We conducted a review of the literature to explore the interaction between race/ethnicity, cultural influences; pain perception, assessment, and communication; provider and patient characteristics; and health system factors and how they might contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in receipt of effective pain management. ⋯ The literature suggests that racial/ethnic disparities in pain management may operate through limited access to health care and appropriate analgesics; patient access to or utilization of pain specialists; miscommunication and/or misperceptions about the presence and/or severity of pain; patient attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that influence the acceptance of appropriate analgesics and analgesic doses; and provider attitudes, knowledge and beliefs about patient pain.
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J Health Care Poor Underserved · Feb 2010
Recruitment of African Americans to National Oncology Clinical Trials through a clinical trial shared resource.
In 2000, using National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI) U54 funds, a clinical trials shared resource was established at Nashville General Hospital at Meharry to attract more African Americans to national cancer clinical trials. This Report from the Field describes the model used to achieve this end.
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J Health Care Poor Underserved · Feb 2010
Comparative StudyPerioperative analgesic treatment in Latino and non-Latino pediatric patients.
Adult studies suggest pain treatment is influenced by patient's race/ ethnicity. The present study aims to evaluate the effect of the patient's race/ethnicity on pain treatment in children. ⋯ This study suggests that perioperative pain treatment in children is correlated with the patient's ethnicity. The cause of this difference is unknown and prospective studies are necessary to elucidate the reasons.