Fewer menopause symptoms, HT prescriptions among Black and Hispanic vs. white veterans
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Reported menopause symptoms and prescriptions for hormone therapy were less common among Black and Hispanic female veterans, highlighting disparities in the discussion, documentation and management of menopause, according to researchers.
“There are known barriers to menopause care in the general population, including limited discussion of bothersome sensitive symptoms between providers and their patients. However, very little is known about the experience or clinical management of menopause symptoms among women veterans who seek Veterans Affairs care,” Anna Blanken, MA, a clinical geropsychology postdoctoral fellow at the San Francisco VA Health Care System and the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues wrote. “Without better clinician knowledge of symptom experience, racial/ethnic minority women may experience poorer treatment of bothersome symptoms that negatively impacts their quality of life.”
The cross-sectional analysis included data from 200,901 female veterans (mean age, 54.3 years) in national Veterans Health Administration electronic health records from 2014 to 2015. Researchers compared documented menopause symptoms and treatment by self-identified race/ethnicity after adjusting for age, BMI and depressive symptoms.
Researchers observed 5% of female veterans with documented menopause symptoms, 5% who were prescribed vaginal estrogen and 5% who were prescribed systemic HT.
Non-Hispanic Black women had lower odds for documented menopause symptoms compared with non-Hispanic white women in fully adjusted multivariable models (OR = 0.82; 95% CI, 0.78-0.86). In addition, non-Hispanic Black women (OR = 0.74; 95% CI, 0.7-0.77) and Hispanic women (OR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.61-0.77) both had a lower likelihood for receiving a prescription for HT.
Compared with non-Hispanic white women, Hispanic women had higher odds for receiving a prescription for vaginal estrogen (OR = 1.12; 95% CI, 1.02-1.24). Also, compared with non-Hispanic white women, non-Hispanic Black women had lower likelihood of estrogen use (OR = 0.78; 95% CI, 0.74-0.81).
“The current findings may inform comprehensive gender-sensitive care and care for racial/ethnic minorities both within and outside of VA settings,” the researchers wrote.
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