Minority women in every state continue to fare worse than white women on 25 measures of health, health care access and other social determinants of health according to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Putting Women's Health Care Disparities on the Map: Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparities at the State Level found that American Indian and Alaska Native women had among the worst outcomes on many health indicators, often twice as high as white women. Their rate of serious psychological distress was more than 1.5 times that of white women, and they had the highest rates of smoking and cardiovascular disease and considerably greater access-of-care problems.
Tremendous variation also exists among states within racial and ethnic groups. Among women who are Asian American and Native Hawaiian, for example, 10 percent in Ohio had late or no prenatal care compared to 34 percent in Utah. Forty-three percent of Hispanic women in Oklahoma had not had a mammogram in the past two years, compared to 14.5 percent in Massachusetts.
To emphasize the need for healthcare reform, earlier this week HHS also released a report on the stark differences in health among minorities and whites. For example, 48 percent of all African Americans adults suffer from a chronic disease compared to 39 percent of the general population. And while 15 percent of African Americans, 14 percent of Hispanics, and 18 percent of American Indians develop diabetes, only 8 percent of whites have diabetes. Health Disparities: A Case for Closing the Gap also notes that about one-third of the uninsured have a chronic disease, and they are six times less likely to receive care for a health problem than the insured.
