Emergency responders and paramedics may treat minority patients differently than white patients, a recent study in Oregon suggests.
Five things to know:
1. For the study, researchers used 104,000 medical charts of ambulance patients between 2015 and 2017.
2. Jamie Kennel, PhD, head of emergency medical services programs at Portland, Ore.-based Oregon Health and Science University and Klamath Falls, Ore.-based Oregon Institute of Technology, conducted the research funded by a federal grant.
3. Researchers found minority patients were 40 percent less likely to receive pain medication compared to the white patients that were treated. This finding was regardless of socioeconomic factors such as health insurance status.
4. While blatant racial discrimination is rare, unconscious bias in how emergency responders treat minority patients may be at play, especially with the high-pressured situations EMTs and paramedics often face, according to NPR.
5. Researchers suggest health systems can cut down on racial bias through open education and hiring more people of color.
"We want to see more ethnicities represented in EMS — which has historically been a white, male-dominated workforce," Robert McDonald, operation manager at Portland, Ore.-based American Medical Response, told NPR.
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