But while health care professionals have offered advice on how to minimize waits and how to make the most of your one-on-one time with a doctor, few have ever addressed a hurdle that many black patients may face -- racial bias.
In a study published in a March issue of the American Journal of Public Health, researchers found that two-thirds of doctors harbored "unconscious" racial biases toward patients. When those biases were present, researchers found that doctors tended to dominate conversations with African-American patients, pay less attention to their personal and psychosocial needs and make patients feel less involved in making decisions about their health.
