PATIENT-PHYSICIAN PAIRING: DOES RACIAL AND ETHNIC CONGRUITY INFLUENCE SELECTION OF A REGULAR PHYSICIAN?

• Published in: Journal of community health 1997-08, Vol.22 (4), p.247-259
• Main Authors: Gray, Bradley, Stoddard, Jeffrey J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: African Americans; African Americans - psychology; African Americans - statistics & numerical data; Community Relations; Cross-Sectional Studies; Databases, Factual; Economic factors; Economic Status; Ethnic Diversity; Ethnic Groups; Ethnicity; Evidence; Family Practice - statistics & numerical data; Health Care Surveys; Health Care Utilization; Health Conditions; Hispanic Americans; Hispanic Americans - psychology; Hispanic Americans - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Medical Services; Minority & ethnic groups; Minority Groups; Minority Groups - psychology; Minority Groups - statistics & numerical data; Models, Statistical; Multivariate Analysis; National Surveys; Odds Ratio; Patient Acceptance of Health Care - ethnology; Patient Satisfaction - ethnology; Patients; Physician patient relationships; Physician-Patient Relations; Physicians; Practitioner Patient Relationship; Private sector; Race; Race Relations; Regression (Statistics); Regression Analysis; Retrospective Studies; Sampling; Socioeconomic Factors; Socioeconomic Status; Socioeconomics; State Surveys; United States; Whites
• ISSN: 0094-5145; 1573-3610
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1025148302636

Many public and private sector efforts are devoted toward increasing the training of physicians from under-represented minority groups, yet little has been documented regarding the association between physicians' racial backgrounds and the patient populations they serve. To address this question, we use 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey to examine the impact of race/ethnicity on the matching between physician and patients. Our results show that minority patients are significantly more likely to report having a minority physician as their regular doctor. We estimate that minority patients are five times as likely as non-minorities to report that their regular physician is a member of a racial/ethnic minority. This effect is especially pronounced among Hispanics who identify a Hispanic physician as their regular provider 19 times more often than non-minorities. After controlling for other socioeconomic factors, both these figures remain significant, but drop by approximately one-half. These results support the notion that minority patients tend to see minority physicians at a disproportional rate independent of other socio-economic factors.