ACP reaffirms commitment to eliminate disparities, discrimination in health care

The ACP published a position paper that contains a framework for recognizing, confronting and removing disparities in health and health care that individuals face based on their race, ethnicity and religious and/or cultural identities.

“Too many Americans face discrimination and disparities that negatively impact their health,” Jacqueline W. Fincher, MD, MACP, president of ACP, said in a press release. “As physicians, we have a moral imperative to help address this issue.”

Some of the recommendations and beliefs in ACP’s position paper are:

• “Physicians and other clinicians must make it a priority to meet the cultural, informational and linguistic needs of their patients, with support from policymakers and payers.”
• “More research and data collection related to racial and ethnic health disparities are needed to empower policymakers and stakeholders to better understand and address the problem of disparities. Collected data must be granular and inclusive of all personal identities to more accurately identify socioeconomic trends and patterns."
• “Health care facilities and medical schools and their clinicians and students should be incentivized to use patient-centered and culturally appropriate approaches to create a trusted health care system free of unjust and discriminatory practices.”
• “A diverse, equitable and inclusive physician workforce is crucial to promote equity and understanding among clinicians and patients and to facilitate quality care, and it supports actions to achieve such diversity, equity and inclusion.”
• “Health care delivery and payment systems should support physician-led, team-based and patient- and family-centered care that is easily accessible to those affected by discrimination and social drivers of health.”

The position paper is an update to a previous ACP position paper with similar themes that was issued in 2010. Josh Serchen, BA, and members of the health and public policy committee wrote in Annals of Internal Medicine that the lack of significant change, advances in research and increasing awareness of racial disparities prompted the update.

“There is now a greater understanding that to reduce health disparities, management of a patient's health can no longer end at the office door,” they wrote. “There is a growing public consciousness about — and a national reckoning — over the presence of structural racism and its effect on health.”

The updated paper is accompanied by three related policy papers that offer more specific recommendations for addressing disparities in education and the physician workforce, specific populations and criminal justice. All the documents were approved by ACP’s board of regents and are on ACP’s website, according to Serchen and colleagues.

“We implore readers to read the three papers, along with this framework, to better understand the policy recommendations that make up ACP's holistic vision to eliminate health disparities,” they wrote.