In a recent study, black patients said they were more likely to agree to certain health tests if they discussed them with a black male doctor. One of the doctors who participated in the study said, “It’s something they don’t teach you in medical school — taking that extra step because you appreciate there have been barriers in the past,” he said.
In the United States, black men have the lowest life expectancy of any ethnic group. A lot of this disparity can be explained by higher rates of chronic illnesses, like diabetes and heart disease.
These higher rates could be attributed to things like lack of insurance or lack of healthcare.
However, a group of researchers in California has demonstrated that there may be another, more simple explanation: a lack of black physicians.
The study showed that black men seeing black male doctors were more likely to agree to certain preventive measures or tests than the black men who saw white or asian doctors were. Unfortunately, even though 13 percent of the US population is black, just 4 percent of doctors are black.
The study was published in June by the National Bureau for Economic Research, and involved 702 black men in Oakland, who came to a clinic for a free health screening. The volunteers were assigned to a black male doctor at random, or one who was white or Asian.
Neither group was aware of the purpose of the study. Part of the health check was a screening for Diabetes, and 63 percent of the men assigned to a black doctor agreed to the screening. However, only 43 percent of the men assigned to a doctor who was white or Asian consented to the same screening.
About 62 percent of the black men with a black doctor agreed to cholesterol tests, compared to the 36 percent assigned to a doctor who was not black.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/20/health/black-men-doctors.html
