Race Advances Health Care Research - 1335 Words

Racial categories play a significant role in healthcare and research, and should not be eliminated. Firstly, studying race advances health care research because it adds a layer of understanding between the doctor and the patient; the researcher and the subject. Race is a real aspect of human life, and ignoring it completely will make a superficial relationship between health care professionals and their patients. By studying the behavior of physicians, a 2010 study concluded â€Å"patient race is important to physicians when making decisions about preconception genetic testing and that decision making is influenced by patients’ physical characteristics† (Bonham et al. 2010). Patient race was important to the physicians’ decision making skills.†¦show more content†¦Furthermore, â€Å"clinicians will make better educated patient evaluations if they familiarize themselves with the history of the particular communities they serve† (Rondini 2015: pg. 1 426). Communities are more than likely separated by races. This can be due to language barriers, economic barriers, and cultural differences. It is imperative to keep racial categories in healthcare because it builds a deeper relationship between a health care provider and patient by allowing more information to flow in their conversation. Racial categories should be kept in health care and research because by eliminating race, structural inequality will be overlooked. When taking race into consideration, there is an explicit difference in regards to health status. For example, â€Å"infant mortality among blacks was 2 1/2 times higher than among whites† (Lillie-Blanton 2000: pg. 222). In another instance, â€Å"the correlation between darker skin in a community-based sample of U.S. blacks and high blood pressure found that the association between skin color and blood pressure was significant only in persons whose socioeconomic status was low and in individuals who had not completed high school† (Schulman et al. 1995, pg. 186). In both cases, there is a substantial health inequality between white and black people. However, as Lillie-Blanton elucidated, this is correlation was found in areas where there was socioeconomic status had an impact. By disregarding race, we are actually