Examining equity in patient care

How does the patient health care experience vary depending on who you are and where you live? MyHealthTeam and Publicis Health Media surveyed patients in three online support communities focused on breast cancer, diabetes and MS to find out. By combining the results and applying modeling across disease states, we discovered that quality of HCP interactions, affordability of care, and access to care vary based on race, gender and ethnicity regardless of the patient’s diagnosis.

Black and Hispanic patients experience poorer-quality interactions with their doctors than white patients do, particularly in terms of feeling respected and being included in decision-making. They also have greater challenges in disease management, cost of care and impact on work. Hispanic patients struggle the most, reporting lower measures of care quality, more difficulty with disease management, and less access to community resources and outpatient care than Black or white patients.

Women, regardless of race or ethnicity, reported a greater disease impact on quality of life than men, greater difficulty managing their disease and gender-specific differences in HCP interactions such as poorer symptom management and less sharing of disease knowledge. They struggle more to afford care and feel a greater impact of their disease on their ability to care for loved ones.

Key takeaways:

1. Despite recent efforts to improve DEI in health care, these data demonstrate significant negative impact of race, ethnicity and gender on patients’ ability to manage their disease and access quality care.
2. Pharma, marketers and HCPs should work to provide additional support to patients who struggle the most, such as providing multilingual materials and helping low-income patients find healthy foods, develop in-home exercise routines and connect to community resources.
3. Physician education should be part of an integrated approach to health care equity, especially in terms of how to interact with diverse patients and providing resources for mental health.

Healthcare/Pharma Joint Presentation Research Report