Racial bias on the part of physicians is a cause of poor health in racial minorities, according to a Jan. 28 statement by American Medical News.
"About two-thirds of the Denver doctors showed implicit bias against blacks," according to a study cited by AMN, "with 43 percent landing unconscious bias scores graded as moderate or strong."
The findings were the result of psychological tests administered to more than 130 doctors and nurses, AMN said.
"The speed with which the test taker associates the words with black or white faces demonstrates the existence and extent of their unconscious bias," AMN said. "The assessment, called the implicit association test, has been used in more than 700 studies in health care, psychology, market research and political science."
The unconscious bias can be a killer, AMN said.
"If the persistence of unconscious bias poses a challenge for physicians struggling to connect with their minority patients, racial segregation appears to present a larger and deadlier quandary that extends well beyond the doctor’s office," AMN said.
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