title: Engagement of health plans and employers in addressing racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
abstract: Disparities in access to and quality of health care along racial and ethnic lines are an important national problem. Health care purchasers and payers have a potentially important role to play in alleviating this problem. Using national surveys of 609 employers and 252 health plans with HMO products in 41 U.S. markets, we examined awareness of racial and ethnic disparities in health care access and quality, perceptions of employer and health plan role in addressing disparities, and reported efforts to measure and reduce disparities. Our findings suggest that most health plans and many employers are aware of the existence of substantial disparities and that health plans, but not employers, have taken steps to examine and influence patterns of care by race and ethnicity among their members.
authors.affiliation: Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Meredith B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Rosenthal
authors.forename: Bruce E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Landon
authors.forename: Sharon-Lise T
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Normand
authors.forename: Thaniyyah S
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Ahmad
authors.forename: Arnold M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Epstein
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D054625:Healthcare Disparities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health; D016015:Logistic Models; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012494:Sampling Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States