Quality of Breast Cancer Care: The Role of Hispanic Ethnicity, Language, and Socioeconomic Position
Abstract
The goal of this work is to inform our understanding of racial and ethnic disparities in breast cancer care and the impact of socioeconomic position and linguistic barriers. We have enriched existing data from a population-based sample of Los Angeles women diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000 with publicly available 2000 Census data. We identified census tracts classified as Poverty Areas (>=20% of population below the federal poverty level (FPL)); Undereducated Areas (>25% of the adult population lacks high school degree percentages of foreign-born citizens race/ethnic groups limited English-proficiency (LEP) and unemployment. Preliminary findings: breast cancer patient survey response and treatment in hospitals with characteristics associated with high quality care both vary by race/ethnicity and neighborhood characteristics. These results support the hypothesis that quality of care research should consider patient healthcare setting and neighborhood characteristics. Cancer care providers report notable proportions of LEP patients in their practice and varied methods for communicating with them. Providers and patients in large practices have more access to trained interpreters. Black and Spanish-speaking women were more likely than whites to report not receiving desired help for symptoms. More black and Hispanic (Vs white) women reported that they believed the doctor did not think treatment would benefit her the doctor did not appreciate how much the problem bothered her the doctor did not know about treatments or insurance/cost barriers. Physician reports indicate that better symptom
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA459165
Entities
People
- Diana M. Tisnado
Organizations
- University of California, Los Angeles