unconscious beliefs and assumptions
unconscious beliefs and assumptions
Knowing that disparities exist is, by itself, an insufficient impetus to change. Health care providers will be more motivated to change their behavior if they believe their behavior may contribute to racial-ethnic disparities. Troublingly, not only did respondents in this study believe that disparities were more likely to exist in other providers’ practices than in their own, but they also generally believed that disparities were more prevalent in other medical fields than in their own, a finding that is consistent with other research ( 16 ). We posit that this trend reflects a natural discomfort that results when health care providers are asked to consider their own contributions to racial-ethnic inequalities. Although it is distressing to address others’ contributions to disparities, it is almost certainly more difficult to consider our own discriminatory and racially driven behavior, particularly when that behavior arises from unconscious beliefs and assumptions ( 10 ).
Our results indicate that recently trained psychiatrists are more likely to perceive racial disparities as equally prevalent in their own practices as in other providers’ practices. This may reflect an increased focus in medical education on issues of race-ethnicity, or it may reflect a more general shift in cultural beliefs about race and racial inequality among younger generations. Somewhat contradictorily, however, physicians who were more familiar with the disparities literature were more likely to see disparities as more prevalent in other physicians’ practices, suggesting that education about racial-ethnic disparities may have an effect that is opposite of what is intended. Physicians who are more educated about disparities may believe they have been able to achieve equality in their own practices, and this is indeed a valid possibility but one that should be tested empirically. Another possibility is that familiarity with the research on racial disparities does not itself render physicians more willing to accept their role in perpetuating inequalities. Understanding the complex relationships between these various factors requires longitudinal studies that measure changes in phys
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