CRWL 's Center for Reducing Health Disparities

Case Western's Center for Reducing Health Disparities is a site that is worth looking into.

Hear are just of few issues that they cover, which includes links to their source material.

• Breast Reconstruction Varies By Race
  Receipt of breast reconstruction varied significantly by patient race/ethnicity (40.9% of whites, 33.5% of African Americans, 41.2% of highly acculturated Latinas, and only 13.5% of less acculturated Latinas; P < .0001). Nearly 14% of less acculturated Latinas said they did not know how to get breast reconstruction, compared with less than 2% for all other groups (P<.001). The differences in survival by race actually appeared to have more to do with the hospitals than the patients themselves. Potential racial differences in access to care or preferences have been used to explain disparities in treatments and patient outcomes. But these are not likely to influence treatment in cardiac arrests since patients were already in the hospital and care of these patients is pretty clear" states Chan.
• Black Patients Experience Worse In-hospital Cardiac Care, Lower Chances Of Survival Medical News Today highlights a new study published in the September 16th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. This study points to significant disparities in the rates of successful resuscitation for black patients, making them less likely to survive an in-hospital cardiac arrest compared to white patients.
• Race is a factor in the severity of lupus
  Recognizing the early symptoms of lupus and referring to specialists can reduce setbacks in adequate treatment options. Graciela Alarcón, M.D., a professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham explains. Rheumatologists are aware of the differences in severity and outcome of lupus among patients of different racial groups," said Graciela Alarcón, M.D., a professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. However, she said that these differences are not common knowledge among "general practitioners who are the ones more likely to encounter patients at disease onset when disease manifestations may not be so obvious.

I want to see how Health Care reform will affect these disparities. Whether we are rich or poor, black or white, we should all have the same high level of health care.