Minority Mistrust for the Healthcare System: Does Health Plan Matter?

Literature Update 6, April 2005

Consistently, research has shown that for a variety of reasons, minority Americans tend to be more mistrustful of the healthcare system than whites. Some had hypothesized that this might be because minorities are over-represented in government funded (Medicaid) or other more restrictive health plans. A recent study published in Health Services Research sought to determine whether minority mistrust for the healthcare system was dependent on health plan type. After analyzing a national survey, the researchers found that disparate levels of trust and satisfaction exist within ethnic and minority populations, even when controlling for the distribution of individuals across types of health plans. Their study confirmed that minorities are more likely than whites to have lower levels of trust and satisfaction with their physician (most prominent differences occurred within the Latino and Native American/Asian American/Pacific Islander/Other ("Other") populations), but that plan type does not mitigate the relationship between race/ethnicity and trust and satisfaction for the overall adult population. The authors highlight that the results demonstrate the need to better understand the health care-related factors that drive disparate trust and satisfaction, and the importance of trust-building in the clinical encounter.