Ethnic minorities suffer from under-treatment of pain in the emergency department as compared with their white counterparts
3. Physicians have been guilty of inadequately managing pain in racial and ethnic minorities regardless of the type, eg, acute and chronic, cancerous, end-of-life, and healthcare setting, eg, surgical, emergency, postoperative, outpatient
4. Even when income, insurance, and access to care are controlled, minorities are not as likely as white patients to receive the care that is needed, including medically necessary procedures.
1 Todd et al
5,6 reviewed University of California, Los Angeles Emergency Medical Center records of analgesia therapy for isolated extremity fractures and found that Hispanics were often undertreated for pain. Although there were no differences in pain assessment of Hispanics and non-Hispanic white patients with long-bone fractures, Hispanics were two times more likely not to receive pain medication than non-Hispanic whites
5,6. Blacks also received the same inadequate therapy. Bernabei et al
7 illustrated how black Americans residing in nursing homes were assessed and treated less often than whites. Asian, black, and Hispanic women were less likely to relieve epidural analgesia than white women in a study of patients with identical Medicaid insurance coverage.
8