Residents' awareness of racial and ethnic disparities in cardiovascular care

To characterize attitudes of residents toward racial/ethnic disparities in health care and to explore the effect of a simple intervention to improve awareness of these disparities.

The authors surveyed residents in internal and emergency medicine rotating through the Coronary Care Unit of a major teaching hospital about their attitudes toward disparities in cardiovascular care before and after an intervention that fostered discussion of evidence for the existence of disparities, possible causes of disparities, and clinically focused approaches to quality improvement tailored to the residents' practice environment.

Before the intervention, 35% of residents agreed that racial/ethnic disparities might occur for patients within the US health care system in general, and only 7% agreed that patients they personally treated might experience racial/ethnic disparities in healthcare. These proportions increased significantly after the intervention: 85% agreement at level of US health care system and 32% at the level of individual practice (P < .001). Changes in awareness did not differ by sex, postgraduate year of training, race/ethnicity, reported prior diversity training, or plans to subspecialize.

Awareness of racial/ethnic disparities in care among residents remains low, particularly at the level of individual practice, but is amenable to intervention.