Differential Treatment
African-American Distrust of the Healthcare System

Text by Kristian Henderson and Tari Owi
Photography by Kristian Henderson

It is seven o' clock, the sun has set, and the moon is gleaming. There is a low buzz of patients in the emergency room - a little girl with a stomach ache, a high school football player with a broken arm, and a first time mother going into labor. It is one of those rare nights without serious traumas. At 7:15 p.m., two middle aged men rush into the emergency room suffering from the same symptoms: severe chest pains, feelings of indigestion and nausea, throbbing of the jaw, and shortness of breath. One man is immediately given an EKG, while the other is sent home untreated, and told that he is merely experiencing the consequences of his dinner - heart burn. How is it possible that two men with the same symptoms are given such different treatment? The only difference between the two men is their race. The man who received medical attention was white and the other was black.

"Differential treatment is not uncommon," explains Dr. Shore, the Associate Dean at the School of Public Health at Harvard University, after presenting the example of the two men in the emergency room. Unequal access, use, and patient experience based on race, gender, geographic location, and/or socioeconomic status frequently plague the healthcare system. Discussing inequalities in the U.S. healthcare system, Dr. Shore explains that there are great disparities in the treatment and approach to personal health between African Americans and other racial minorities and their Caucasian counterparts. Repeated studies have proven this fact. When two groups of doctors are given the same description of a patient's symptoms, but one group is told that the patient is African-American and the other group is told that the patient is Caucasian, the resulting diagnosis are consistently different: doctors recommend a less aggressive treatment for the African-American patient.

Other studies have examined the stereotypes that exist among healthcare professionals. They reveal that doctors presume that their African-American patients are more likely to be drug users, practicing unsafe sex, uninsured, and less likely to follow prescribed medical treatments. These stereotypes result in African-Americans receiving less comprehensive treatments. "I don/t trust the system," explains one middle aged African American woman, "I have insurance. I don't use drugs and I am literate. However, the system does not see me this way and I avoid hospitals and doctors as much as possible."

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