Dataset Information

White patients' physical responses to healthcare treatments are influenced by provider race and gender.

ABSTRACT: The healthcare workforce in the United States is becoming increasingly diverse, gradually shifting society away from the historical overrepresentation of White men among physicians. However, given the long-standing underrepresentation of people of color and women in the medical field, patients may still associate the concept of doctors with White men and may be physiologically less responsive to treatment administered by providers from other backgrounds. To investigate this, we varied the race and gender of the provider from which White patients received identical treatment for allergic reactions and measured patients' improvement in response to this treatment, thus isolating how a provider's demographic characteristics shape physical responses to healthcare. A total of 187 White patients experiencing a laboratory-induced allergic reaction interacted with a healthcare provider who applied a treatment cream and told them it would relieve their allergic reaction. Unbeknownst to the patients, the cream was inert (an unscented lotion) and interactions were completely standardized except for the provider's race and gender. Patients were randomly assigned to interact with a provider who was a man or a woman and Asian, Black, or White. A fully blinded research assistant measured the change in the size of patients' allergic reaction after cream administration. Results indicated that White patients showed a weaker response to the standardized treatment over time when it was administered by women or Black providers. We explore several potential explanations for these varied physiological treatment responses and discuss the implications of problematic race and gender dynamics that can endure "under the skin," even for those who aim to be bias free.

SUBMITTER: Howe LC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9271156 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:IntroductionChronic pain affects millions of individuals worldwide. Healthcare provider gender bias in the management of these individuals has societal and individual ramifications. Yet, a thorough and comprehensive literature summary on this topic is lacking. Therefore, this study aims to systematically: (1) identify and map the available scientific and grey literature as it relates to healthcare provider gender bias in the assessment, diagnosis and management of (chronic) musculoskeletal pain and (2) identify current gaps that necessitate further research.Methods and analysisThis scoping review will be conducted in accordance with recent guidelines, and the results will be reported via the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews. The following databases will be searched: PubMed (National Library of Medicine), Embase (Elsevier), Scopus (Elsevier), CINAHL Complete (Ovid), Academic Search Complete (Ebscohost), Pre-Prints Database (National Library of Medicine) and Rehabilitation Reference Center from inception to August 2022. Additionally, relevant grey literature will be identified. All screening will be done by two independent reviewers during two stages: first title/abstract screening followed by full-text screening. Data will be extracted from the bibliometric, study characteristics, and pain science families of variables. Results will be descriptively mapped, and the frequency of concepts, population, characteristics and other details will be narratively reported. Additionally, results will be presented in tabular and graphical form.Ethics and disseminationAs this study will neither involve human subject participation nor utilisation of protected data, ethical approval is not required. This study's methodological approach follows current recommendations. Study findings will be disseminated through conference presentations and international peer-review journal publication. In addition, infographics available in English, Spanish and German will be disseminated.Registration detailsThis project will be registered in Open Science Framework prior to data collection.

Project description:Previous studies have documented that racial minorities and women receive poorer pain care than their demographic counterparts. Providers contribute to these disparities when their pain-related decision-making systematically varies across patient groups. Less is known about racial and gender disparities in children with pain or the extent to which providers contribute to these disparities. In a sample of 129 medical students (henceforth referred to as "providers"), Virtual Human methodology and a pain-related version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) were used to examine the effects of patient race/gender on providers' pain assessment/treatment decisions for pediatric chronic abdominal pain, as well as the moderating role of provider implicit pain-related race/gender attitudes. Findings indicated that providers rated Black patients as more distressed (mean difference [MD] = 2.33, P < .01, standard error [SE] = .71, 95% confidence interval [CI] = .92, 3.73) and as experiencing more pain-related interference (MD = 3.14, P < .01, SE = .76, 95% CI = 1.63, 4.64) compared to White patients. Providers were more likely to recommend opioids for Black patients than White patients (MD = 2.41, P < .01, SE = .58, 95% CI = 1.05, 3.76). Female patients were perceived to be more distressed by their pain (MD = 2.14, P < .01, SE = .79, 95% CI = .58, 3.70) than male patients, however there were no gender differences in treatment recommendations. IAT results indicated that providers held implicit attitudes that Black Americans (M = .19, standard deviation [SD] = .29) and males (M = .38, SD = .29) were more pain-tolerant than their demographic counterparts; however, these implicit attitudes did not significantly moderate their pain assessment/treatment decisions. Future studies are needed to elucidate specific paths through which the pain experience and care of children differ across racial and gender groups. PERSPECTIVE: Providers' pain assessment (ie, pain distress/pain interference) and treatment (ie, opioids) of pediatric pain differs across patient race and to a lesser extent, patient gender. This study represents a critical step in research on pain-related disparities in pediatric pain.

Dataset Information

White patients' physical responses to healthcare treatments are influenced by provider race and gender.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets