Patient-health care professional gender or race/ethnicity concordance and its association with weight-related advice in the United States.
OBJECTIVE
Examine association between adult patients' and health care providers' (HCPs) gender or race/ethnicity concordance and patients' reported receiving weight-related advice from HCP's in USA.


METHODS
Using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) 2004-2007 data, studied prevalence of weight-related advice (on exercise and diet) given to patients and its association with patients/HCPs concordance in gender (n=9,686) and race/ethnicity (n=8,825).


RESULTS
Overall, 46% of patients received HCP advice on diet and 49% on exercise. Overweight females seeing female HCPs were more likely to receive exercise advice than those seeing male HCPs (OR=1.44 [95% CI: 1.10-1.89]). Race/ethnicity concordance was associated with lower odds of advice-receiving in certain populations (OR=0.80 [0.67-0.97] for exercise and OR=0.42 [0.19-0.91] for diet among white patients, OR=0.47 [0.23-0.98] for exercise among Hispanic overweight patients).


CONCLUSIONS
Patient/HCP gender or race/ethnicity concordance was not positively associated with HCPs providing weight-related advice. Patients with female HCPs or with racial/ethnic discordant HCPs (especially black or Asian HCPs) were more likely to receive advice.


CONCLUSIONS
Health care providers need be empowered, particularly white and male HCPs, to improve delivery of weight-related advice. It may reflect better of receiving weight-related advice based on patients' recall.
Department of Nursing, Mackay Medical College, Taipei, Taiwan; Johns Hopkins Global Center on Childhood Obesity, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Hsing-Yu
HY
Yang
Johns Hopkins Global Center on Childhood Obesity, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; Institute of Public Health and Department of Public Health, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Hsin-Jen
HJ
Chen
Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Jill A
JA
Marsteller
Center for Financing, Access, and Cost Trends, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD, USA.
Lan
L
Liang
Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Leiyu
L
Shi
Johns Hopkins Global Center on Childhood Obesity, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Health Professions, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA. Electronic address: youfawan@buffalo.edu.
Youfa
Y
Wang
D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D044383:Black People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015992:Body Mass Index; D003376:Counseling; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D015995:Prevalence; D044465:White People / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult
Concordance; Health care professional; Health disparity; Obesity; Overweight