How Can Racial and Ethnic Disparities Be Reduced Among Women’s Health and Healthcare?

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published a six-point recommendation list to tackle the problem.

Key Points

Highlights:

• The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published a set of recommendations to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in women’s health and healthcare 

Importance:

• Racial and ethnic disparities in women’s health and healthcare can only be addressed by recognizing the existence of such disparities and identifying factors contributing to them.

What's done here:

• The authors set out the different factors contributing to racial and ethnic disparities in women’s health and healthcare including patient-level factors, healthcare system-level factors, and practitioner-level factors. 

Key results:

The proposed solutions to reduce women’s health and healthcare disparities are:

• Raising awareness among healthcare providers
• Recognizing the importance of practitioner bias
• Data collection about race and ethnicity
• Patient education for disease prevention
• Increasing ethnic and racial diversity among healthcare providers

Lay Summary

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published a set of recommendations to help reduce racial and ethnic disparities in women’s health and healthcare and encourage obstetricians, gynecologists, and other health care practitioners to engage in activities to help achieve this goal.

Significant racial and ethnic disparities still exist in women’s health and healthcare in the U.S. 

According to the committee opinion published in the medical journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, in 2015, obstetricians and gynecologists must be aware of such disparities and factors contributing to them in order to be able to work towards eliminating them and providing the best possible care to all women regardless of their ethnic and racial background.

The recommendations consist of six points. They are:

• Raising awareness among practitioners and hospital administrators regarding the disparities
• Understanding how practitioner bias can influence healthcare
• Data collection about race and ethnicity in order to better identify disparities
• Research into structural and cultural barriers for healthcare and interventions to overcome these
• Patient education to prevent diseases that may be prevalent in certain racial and ethnic groups
• Recruiting obstetricians and gynecologists from racial and ethnic minorities

The authors also suggested additional actions that could be taken by obstetricians and gynecologists to reduce ethnic and racial disparities in their practice and the local community. These include:

• Identifying the disparities specific to that local healthcare system and developing initiatives to target these
• Educating staff about community resources available to women with limited access to health care
• Addressing disparities in environmental exposures, health education and literacy, and women’s health services and outcomes
• Encouraging health system leadership to advocate for local, state, and national policies to reduce racial and ethnic disparities.

Research Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26595584/