Clinical Decision Making & Health Disparities

One important source of health disparities is when healthcare providers make different diagnostic and treatment plans for patients who present with identical signs and symptoms of disease. In other words: people go to the doctor expecting help but too often come away with a missed opportunity. A classic example is women’s heart attacks getting missed in favor of them being told they have anxiety or too much stress… but there are many other critical cases. I have studied this topic extensively, both ethnographically and using video vignette factorial experiments (supported by National Institutes of Health).

Below are some of my favorite articles to come out of that work. (If you can’t access papers, please email me directly.)