This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Minorities at risk for sudden cardiac arrest receive less treatment
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Statistics from a white paper published by the National Medical Association suggested that sudden cardiac arrest is a leading killer of patients with coronary heart disease and that this problem disproportionately affects blacks.
The white paper was released late July following the National Medical Association’s Sudden Cardiac Arrest Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. The meeting was convened to bring attention to the health disparities associated with sudden cardiac arrest and to make recommendations about correcting the disparities.
“Sudden cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death in the United States,” Nelson L. Adams III, MD, president of the National Medical Association, said in the white paper. “Particularly alarming is that it disproportionately affects African-Americans and women — the majority who die before ever receiving emergency care — and that adequate data are not available for Hispanics.”
Disparities among minorities
The paper’s collaborators cite studies and reports that illustrate the scope of the disease and the disparities associated with it. A 2002 white paper from the Institutes of Medicine revealed that racial and ethnic minorities were less likely than whites to receive routine medical treatment for sudden cardiac arrest. Blacks in particular were also less likely to receive cardiac resynchronization therapy or implantable cardiac defibrillators than whites, according to the results of a 2007 study conducted by Hernandez et al.
Additional data cited by the Institutes of Medicine suggested that although sudden cardiac arrest occurs infrequently in Hispanics, they still have less access to care than do whites. Sex differences also affected the implantation rates; results from one study conducted by Curtis et al of 236,000 Medicare beneficiaries suggested that women were 3.2 times less likely than men to receive an ICD.
During a call-to-action brainstorming session, attendees at the meeting formulated several steps required for making sudden cardiac arrest a national health priority. Developing clinical performance measures for sudden cardiac arrest prevention and raising awareness of the condition among consumer and health care professionals were offered as important paths of action, as were increasing professional education and encouraging policymakers to make sudden cardiac arrest a national health priority. – by Eric Raible
For more information:
- National Medical Association. Sudden cardiac arrest: advancing awareness and bridging gaps to improve survival. White paper. Presented at: Sudden Cardiac Arrest Leadership Conference; April 15, 2008; Washington, D.C.
There are several things we should do and are in fact trying to do. One is to increase the number of minorities in the professional caregiving area. We are trying to recruit more women and minorities into medicine and cardiology, and that would have an overall beneficial effect. It is also important to educate caregivers that the individual who is not a member of the white male majority needs to be treated as objectively as any other patient regarding the diagnosis and treatment of whatever problem they have. I am pleased that an organization is taking up the fight for advances in sudden cardiac arrest. This is a major issue in the United States and in Western societies. The more attention drawn to it and resources applied to it, the greater the benefits will be for the majority as well as minority populations.
– Douglas P. Zipes, MD
Cardiology Today Section Editor