Photo: Joe Raedle/Newsmakers/Getty Images
For: EFE Updated 19 Jan 2022, 19: 56 PM EST
DENVER, Colorado – The majority of Hispanic children in the United States who are recovering from certain medical treatments are excluded from clinical trials due to the biased attitude of health professionals, reveals a study released this Wednesday by experts from the University of Utah School of Medicine.
The study, published in the specialized journal Pediatrics, is based on analysis of nearly 550 cases of children with bronchiolitis (viral inflammation of the airways) due to the disparate incidence of this disease among Latino minors: 19.1% for each 1.000 births among Hispanics vs. 11.8 % average in the other ethnic groups.
Dr. Eric R. Coon and his collaborators found that 506 of the 548 patients studied were considered by the corresponding doctors as “appropriate” to participate in clinical studies, after the period of hospitalization for bronchiolitis, that is, a 92 % acceptance.
But nevertheless, those same doctors only accepted 10 % of Hispanic patients and rejected the majority as “inappropriate” (52 %) of Latino minors.
The study emphasizes that “only Hispanic ethnicity continues to be significantly associated with reduced opportunities to be considered appropriate by physicians.”
“Our findings suggest that clinician bias may have reduced the generalizability of trial results and thus perpetuating disparities by depriving Hispanic families of the opportunity to reduce their time and financial burdens after hospital discharge through participation in clinical trials”, says the report.
Previously Other barriers to the participation of Hispanics and members of other minorities in clinical trials had already been identified. Among these barriers are frequently cited the lack of transportation or child care services, as well as the lack of sufficient health professionals from minority groups due to to the existing “marginalization” within academic medicine, Coon indicated.
However, so far little had been done to study the so-called “mediated medical racism”, which may be “intentional or not intentional” and which is defined in the study as “different assumptions about actions towards others (patients) according to their race”.
Due to That medical racism, the report underlines, although children recovering from bronchiolitis are automatically randomly assigned to a control group or an intervention group, most children whose parents speak Spanish are totally excluded from these health tests.
Still worse, the study found that, in the case of medical tests after hospitalization for bronchiolitis, the preferred language of parents of affected children for that disease it was only asked after the children were accepted for those tests, and not before.
“In future clinical trials, investigators should consider interventions that address biases of health providers and investigator at the time of participant selection to maximize diverse and inclusive participation ”, express Coon and his colleagues in the conclusion of the study.
In the United States, according to the National Institute of Health, there are currently about 172,04 annual cases of bronchiolitis, affecting up to 3% of infants. However, that figure is 19 % less than in 2000.