According to an Institute of Medicine report released on March 20, blacks, Hispanics and other minorities receive lower quality healthcare than whites, even when controlling for insurance status and income level. The report, which reviewed more than 100 studies conducted over the last decade, concluded that this disparity contributes to higher minority death rates related to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and HIV.
It might be expected that because minorities are receiving lower quality healthcare, they would also tend to express less confidence in the U.S. medical system than do whites. Interestingly, Gallup research indicates just the opposite.
Gallup has been tracking public confidence in a number of American institutions, including the U.S. medical system, since 1993. During that time, confidence in the medical system has been consistently higher among non-whites than whites. In a June 2001 Gallup poll*, 24% of non-whites reported having "a great deal" of confidence in the medical system, compared with only 13% of whites.
Further, although confidence in the medical system among non-whites has fluctuated slightly, there has been no discernable erosion over this eight-year period. In 1993, 25% of non-whites and 12% of whites had "a great deal" of confidence in the medical system.
A simple evaluation of confidence in the medical system could potentially mask polarization within the non-white community -- if, for example, those with higher incomes tend to express very high confidence while those with lower incomes express very little confidence, a simple average would result in a misleading middle-of-the-road figure. To examine this potential, Gallup examined the ratio of those saying they have a "great deal" of confidence in the medical system to those with "very little" or "none." Again, the results indicated that the non-white population exhibits a consistently higher level of confidence in the medical system than does the white population.
The percentages of both white and non-white respondents who said they have very little or no confidence in the medical system have been consistent and fairly similar since 1993. The differences in the ratios appear primarily because higher percentages of non-whites have consistently been willing to say they have "a great deal" of confidence in the medical system.
*Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,011 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted June 8-10, 2001. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3%.
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