Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care

by Institute of Medicine, Board on Health Sciences Policy, Committee on Understanding and Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care

This congressionally commissioned report by the Institute of Medicine assesses racial and ethnic differences in healthcare not otherwise attributable to known factors such as access to care, evaluates potential sources of such differences, and provides recommendations regarding proper interventions. The report recommends equalizing access to high-quality insurance plans, strengthening doctor-patient relationships over time, increasing the number of minorities represented in the health professions, enforcing civil rights laws, and creating more interpretation services. The CD- ROM contains all the appendixes published in the text of the more expensive, 768-page version of the report (ISBN 0-309-08532-2). Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Genres: Nonfiction, Medicine, Social Justice

780 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2002

About the author

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM, formerly the Institute of Medicine-IOM) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Research Council (NRC).

The National Academy of Medicine provides national advice on issues relating to biomedical science, medicine, and health, and serves as an adviser to the nation to improve health aims to provide unbiased, evidence-based, and authoritative information and advice concerning health and science policy to policy-makers, professionals, leaders in every sector of society, and the public at large.

Operating outside the framework of the U.S. federal government, it relies on a volunteer workforce of scientists and other experts, operating under a formal peer-review system. As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in a relevant field as well as for their willingness to participate actively.

Reviews

[Darnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exhaustive and technical, yet not satisfying. This book is concerned with summarizing all research on the subject, but not with drawing any broader conclusions or making suggestions beyond continuation of research trends. Presumably useful for professionals, but not a type of reading I'll pursue again.

[Amanda]

Another college read- still use this one though as a great reference for those discussions of America "the color blind nation"