Socioeconomic status and dissatisfaction with health care among chronically ill African Americans.
Addressing differences in social class is critical to an examination of racial disparities in health care. Low socioeconomic status is an important determinant of access to health care. Results from a qualitative, in-depth interview study of 60 African Americans who had one or more chronic illnesses found that low-income respondents expressed much greater dissatisfaction with health care than did middle-income respondents. Low socioeconomic status has potentially deadly consequences for several reasons: its associations with other determinants of health status, its relationship to health insurance or the absence thereof, and the constraints on care at sites serving people who have low incomes.
Institute for Health and Aging, University of California-San Francisco, Box 0646, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. becker@itsa.ucsf.edu
Gay
G
Becker
Edwina
E
Newsom
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000145:classification / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002140:California; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000145:classification; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000208:ethnology*; D011203:Poverty / Q000208:ethnology*; D011287:Prejudice; D036301:Qualitative Research; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012923:Social Class; D035862:Vulnerable Populations / Q000208:ethnology