This study represents the nation’s first systematic investigation of racial and ethnic differences in medical care for patients with work-related injuries and illnesses. Though previous evidence and anecdotal accounts have suggested that such differences exist, the use of a nationally representative sample from the NAMCS has allowed us to identify and quantify specific variations in [...]

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Bivariate Statistics
Approximately 2.4% of ambulatory care visits were for work-related conditions (1,179 of 48,054 visits in the NAMCS sample). Of the work-related visits, 11.9% were made by African-American patients and 18.7% involved Hispanic patients. Vis its by African-American patients represented a slightly greater proportion of visits for care of work-related conditions than for nonwork-related conditions [...]

Continue reading " Racial and Ethnic Variations in Office-Based Medical Care: RESULTS "

After controlling for age, gender, region and MSA status (Table 4), African-American patients receiving care for work-related conditions were found to be more than four times as likely as whites to receive mental health counseling (OR=4.60, CI: 2.03-10.44) and were 65% more likely than whites to receive physical therapy (OR=1.65, CI: 1.12-2.44). They were less [...]

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Data and Sample
The National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) is a nationally representative survey of physicians providing office-based ambulatory medical care in the United States. The survey has been conducted annually since 1973 by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The target universe of the [...]

Continue reading " Racial and Ethnic Variations in Office-Based Medical Care: MATERIALS AND METHODS "

Considerable progress has been made in identifying distinctive patterns of medical care among racial and ethnic groups in the general healthcare setting. However, relatively little is known about how medical care for workers suffering occupational injuries or illnesses varies according to patients’ race and ethnicity. In this article, we report the results of an exploratory [...]

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