Blacks have less chances of surviving cardiac arrests: Study
POSTED September 16, 2009 - 17:40 | POSTED BY Pankhuri Kapoor
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on September 16, 2009 - 18:30
The study initiated by Dr Paul S. Chan and his colleagues from the Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri finds that this difference of 12 percent in survival rate was largest among any other racial disparity for any disease.
Data from the National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation was used by the researchers to study the differences in survival rates for patients who suffered from a cardiac arrest in the hospital.
Reports of 10,011 patients from 274 hospitals were studied to reach at the conclusion and out of these 19 percent were black people. The rate of recovery was also found to be lesser for the African Americans.
Reasons behind the disparity in rate of survival
According to the researchers, various factors could be responsible for such a racial disparity.
Dr Chan says, “Black patients were sicker when they had a cardiac arrest than white patients. This suggests that black patients were having cardiac arrests in hospitals that, on average, did a lot worse, in terms of survival, for all their patients.”
"The hospital effect is huge and substantial, and is a contributor to the difference between black and white survivals.”
He also feels that racism was not involved in this as it was hard to imagine a doctor meting out different treatment to patients because of their color, but he does not fully rule out this possibility.
It may be noted that past researches have established a weaker heart for black people than their white counterparts and this may also help in understanding the difference in survival rates.
More research needed to help increase survival
The researchers feel that the above mentioned factors alone are not effective in explaining the racial difference, and more research is needed on the same to help mete out better treatment to black cardiac arrests patients in hospitals.
“Strategies to eliminate racial disparities in survival are not likely to succeed unless they improve resuscitation survival and the quality of post resuscitation care in hospitals that are poor performers and in which black patients are more likely to receive care,” concludes Dr Chan.
The detailed study and its findings have been published in the Sept. 16 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
