Implicit bias and health care
Implicit bias certainly can undermine delivery of effective health care, as documented in March’s Monitor article "How Does Implicit Bias by Physicians Affect Patients’ Health Care?" However, social determinants of health, including socioeconomic status, education and employment, as well as neighborhood social environments and health-care access, as influenced by a wider socio-political environment (Snowden & Graaf, in press), are twice as important as health-care provision itself for preventing premature death (Artiga & Hinton, 2018). Implicit and explicit biases are key features of social environments.
For African-Americans, emergent research goes beyond the clinical encounter and ties community and regional implicit and explicit bias to poor health (Leitner, Hehman, Ayduk, & Mendoza-Denton, 2016; Blair & Brondolo, 2017; Orchard & Price, 2017; Leitner, Hehman, & Snowden, 2018). Moreover, theorists (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017) identify reasons why group biases, when held and enacted in geographically defined areas, are more potent forces than the biases of individuals. Psychologists should also understand that successfully promoting more favorable social determinants could have greater societal impact than even large-scale bias reduction in the clinical encounter.
Lonnie R. Snowden
University of California, Berkeley
Our favorite tweets
Re: "CE Corner: How Does Implicit Bias by Physicians Affect Patients’ Health Care?" (March)
@NKaslow It is incredibly important for all healthcare providers to be mindful of the impact of implicit bias and to take steps to minimize such bias and its negative effects
@DrKaraAyers Implicit bias is a critical topic. Thanks for covering @APA_Monitor but I am disappointed in the lack of coverage of bias towards ppl w/ disabilities in the healthcare setting. This omission in a CE piece widens the disparity gap. Would love to talk about working to close it.
Re: "The Hot List: New Video Series on Race" (March)
@Cassie_Boness Really glad to see this in @APA_Monitor this month!
Re: "Lab Work: The Athletic Brain" (March)
@GraceOlympic Fascinating article!
Clarification
In the sidebar to the March article "How to Monitor Patients’ Medications," we should have noted that there is variation in statutory requirements for obtaining prescription privileges in each of the states listed and that some states allow for training that is substantially equivalent to the master’s degree. Psychologists should check the statutes and regulations of their states. In addition, psychologists who have completed training in clinical psychopharmacology can make medication recommendations and write or discontinue prescriptions in certain federal agencies. Psychologists credentialed to prescribe in those federal agencies may do so in those federal agency locations throughout the United States, even if the particular state has not enacted prescriptive authority laws.
We’d love your feedback. Please send letters to Monitor Editor Sara Martin at smartin@apa.org.