Clinicians with higher levels of implicit ethnic or racial bias—bias that may not be consciously acknowledged but operates in more subtle ways—are rated less favorably by their black patients than are clinicians with lower levels of implicit bias.
Surveys of nearly 3,000 patients, randomly selected from patient panels of 134 clinicians who had previously completed tests of implicit ethnic or racial bias, found black patients rated clinicians who had greater implicit bias against blacks lower in patient-centered care than they did clinicians with little or no such implicit bias.
Interestingly, the researchers found Latino patients' ratings were not associated with clinicians' implicit bias, though they tended to give clinicians lower ratings overall than did other groups.
The findings suggest that clinicians' implicit bias may jeopardize their clinical relationships with black patients, which could have negative effects on other care processes.
The authors conclude these findings support the Institute of Medicine's suggestion that clinician bias may contribute to health disparities.
They note that implicit bias is malleable, and they encourage interventions that may help render bias less implicit and unconscious, thereby fostering real reflection, analysis and change.
Clinicians' Implicit Ethnic/Racial Bias and Perceptions of Care Among Black and Latino Patients By Irene V. Blair, PhD, et al, University of Colorado Boulder