Medical care is crucial to the health of a nation. Many factors go into the quality of medical care people receive, including socioeconomic status, location, employment and more. One factor that is especially concerning is race.

Contrary to popular belief, racism isn’t always malicious or intentional. Implicit bias is when certain attributes are associated with a social group unconsciously.[1] Everyone has implicit bias, but when working in positions like the medical field, it is important to check these biases to ensure that patients are receiving optimal care. The biggest issues with medical racism are systemic healthcare disparities and lack of proper care in minority communities.

Obstacles that affect healthcare are high costs, little or no insurance coverage, lack of service, and lack of culturally competent care.[2] The resulting issues are unmet healthcare needs, delays in getting proper care, inability to get care, financial burdens, and preventable hospitalizations.[2]  “Access to care may also vary based on factors of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and residential location.”[2] Some factors involved in minorities getting inadequate healthcare compared to white people are higher unemployment rates and low representation in jobs that provide good medical care packages.[3] CDC data in 2015 evaluated that Black Americans had a 40% higher mortality rate than white people. Black Americans are also more likely to develop chronic diseases than white people. These problems pose a large risk to the health of minority communities.

After adjusting income and socioeconomic status, one might think that healthcare quality becomes almost even— it doesn’t. In 2005, the National Academy of Medicine wrote “even when insurance status, income, age, and severity of conditions are comparable”,[4] minorities receive lower grade health care than white people. Minorities are also less likely to get proper care for cardiac illnesses, kidney dysfunction, strokes, cancers, and AIDS.[4] These disparities contribute to a higher mortality rate for minorities and lower overall health.

The U.S population is climbing regarding diversity but the medical field is slow to catch up. In “The Racial and Ethnic Composition and Distribution of Primary Care Physicians,” authors Xierali and Nivet say that the physician workforce has been diversifying very slowly compared to the American populationーespecially in medical specialties like oncology, radiology, and emergency medicine.[5] A 2004 report by the Institution of Medicine emphasized the importance of racial and ethnic diversity in the medical field. It said that “diversity is associated with improved access to care for ethnic/racial minorities, [and] greater patient choice and satisfaction, better patient-clinician communication...”[6] There are clear benefits towards diversifying the medical field, mainly improving medical care for minorities.

Native American communities lag behind every other race when it comes to healthcare. “American Indians and Alaska Natives born today have a life expectancy that is 4.4 years less than the United States’ all races population, and they continue to die at higher rates than other Americans in many categories of preventable illness, including chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, diabetes, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.”[7] Congress continues to underfund the IHS agency (Indian Health Service). Native Americans are also at higher risk of contracting diseases than other races.

Minority community health is underfunded and improperly supported. Despite evidence from over fifteen years ago highlighting these problems, not much has changed. There are still stark differences between the health of white communities and minority communities. 

You’re probably wondering, what can be done? The US Department of Health and Human Services’ National Healthcare Disparities Report outlines four main focus areas in improving healthcare: “raising public and provider awareness of racial/ethnic disparities in care, expanding health insurance coverage, improving the capacity and number of providers in underserved communities, and increasing the knowledge base on causes and interventions to reduce disparities.”[8] Possible ways devised to decrease racial disparities in healthcare would be: Physician Approached Focuses, which would teach medical students about racial disparities in healthcare, Physician-Patient Intervention Relations, which would facilitate conversation between patients and their doctors about racial bias, and System Approached Focuses, where health care systems would recognize any possible cases where patients received unequal care compared to similar patients.[9]. No single solution is perfect but the U.S needs to work on combating unequal medical care and implicit bias in medicine.