TY - JOUR
T1 - Disparities in oncologic surgery
AU - Greenberg, Caprice C.
AU - Weeks, Jane C.
AU - Stain, Steven C.
N1 - Funding Information:
In 1994, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published guidelines for the inclusion of women and minorities in clinical research []. This initiative has been updated in new NIH guidelines []. At present, all grant applications involving patient-oriented research must address subject selection criteria and rationale, as well as outreach plans for recruitment. Reviewers of grants must evaluate the inclusion plans, and unacceptable plans cannot be funded. To foster interest in health care research, the NIH has developed a loan repayment program that will repay up to $35,000 per year of educational debt for doctoral level investigators who commit 50% of their total level of effort toward research on health disparities. These two objectives, inclusion of women and minorities in clinical research and encouraging health disparity research, may pay long-term dividends.
PY - 2008/4
Y1 - 2008/4
N2 - Surgical oncology is one of the most frequently studied surgical specialties with regard to disparities in quality of care. There is variation in the care received according to nonclinical factors such as age, race and ethnicity, education, income, and even geographic region. Differences exist with regard to who gets treatment, what treatment is received, and the outcomes of those treatments. Although the existence of such disparities is no longer in doubt, the etiology is still being investigated. Ongoing research and quality improvement initiatives move beyond the mere description of existing disparities in one of three ways: (1) identifying and understanding the factors that lead to disparities; (2) advancing available methods to measure and track disparities; and (3) developing an approach to improvement. In this article, we start out by offering a framework to describe potential factors that lead to disparities, using examples from surgical oncology. We then describe the approaches to measuring and tracking disparities that are being used in research and quality improvement. Finally, we attempt to illustrate how all of these factors interact and offer some potential strategies to close the gap and alleviate disparities within the discipline.
AB - Surgical oncology is one of the most frequently studied surgical specialties with regard to disparities in quality of care. There is variation in the care received according to nonclinical factors such as age, race and ethnicity, education, income, and even geographic region. Differences exist with regard to who gets treatment, what treatment is received, and the outcomes of those treatments. Although the existence of such disparities is no longer in doubt, the etiology is still being investigated. Ongoing research and quality improvement initiatives move beyond the mere description of existing disparities in one of three ways: (1) identifying and understanding the factors that lead to disparities; (2) advancing available methods to measure and track disparities; and (3) developing an approach to improvement. In this article, we start out by offering a framework to describe potential factors that lead to disparities, using examples from surgical oncology. We then describe the approaches to measuring and tracking disparities that are being used in research and quality improvement. Finally, we attempt to illustrate how all of these factors interact and offer some potential strategies to close the gap and alleviate disparities within the discipline.
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U2 - 10.1007/s00268-007-9383-x
DO - 10.1007/s00268-007-9383-x
M3 - Article
C2 - 18197450
AN - SCOPUS:41049096750
SN - 0364-2313
VL - 32
SP - 522
EP - 528
JO - World Journal of Surgery
JF - World Journal of Surgery
IS - 4
ER -