Race, Ethnicity, and Health

Race, Ethnicity, and Health
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Chapter Thirty-Two
The Effect of Patients’ Race and Socioeconomic Status on Physicians’ Perceptions of Patients
Summary
The patients’ socio-demographic characteristics have been found to have significant impacts on both the physicians’ behavior and on the diagnosis and treatment that the patients receive. The effect of the patients’ socio-demographic characteristics may persist when the factors like the patients’ income, insurance coverage, and the severity of the disease can be controlled. The topic of the patients’ socio-demographic characteristics can be partially mediated by the difference in the perception of the physicians and the beliefs of the patients. The perception of the physicians may vary depending on the races of the patients, the socioeconomic status of the patients or the demographic characteristics. The difference in the perception of the physician may provide explanations for some variance in the behavior of the physicians towards the treatment of the patients.
The Effect of Patients’ Race and Socioeconomic Status on Physicians’ Perceptions of Patients
The behavior of physicians and the patients’ diagnosis and treatments the patients receives are both affected by the socio-demographic characteristics of the patients. The effect of the patients’ socio-demographic characteristics may persist when the factors like the patients’ income, insurance coverage, and the severity of the disease can be controlled. The topic of the patients’ socio-demographic characteristics can be partially mediated by the difference in the perception of the physicians and the beliefs of the patients. The perception of the physicians may vary depending on the races of the patients, the socioeconomic status of the patients or the demographic characteristics. The difference in the perception of the physician may provide explanations for some variance in the behavior of the physicians towards the treatment of the patients (Smedley, 2002).
Humans share some general adaptive strategies that they use to make the world more manageable. The adaptive strategies apply the use of generalizing and the categorizing techniques to help in the simplification of the massive amount of the complex information and stimuli that they may come across. From the research, factors like the time pressure, the need for quick judgment, the cognitive load, the business and the task complexity may increase the usage of stereotype. The survey by the researchers where the independent variables were the patients’ socioeconomic status and the p...