
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 18, 1992                   TAG: 9203180203
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BLACKS UNDERGO FEWER HEART BYPASSES

Older whites are 3 1/2 times more likely than older blacks to receive potentially life-saving surgery to bypass a blocked coronary artery, according to a new study that offers striking evidence of a wide racial gap in access to medical care.

The study, based on more than 86,000 coronary artery bypass graft surgeries performed under the Medicare program, found that the gap was widest in Southeastern states, where whites were more than six times as likely to have the operation as blacks. It also found that the procedure was five times more prevalent among white men than among black men.

"It is possible that some patients are dying of heart attacks that could have been prevented with surgery," said Dr. Arthur J. Hartz, a co-author.

The authors of the study, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, said that the racial disparity might be traceable to several factors, including black poverty, black reluctance to undergo surgery, and racial prejudice among physicians.

Because the study covered patients who already have insurance under Medicare, a form of national health insurance for people over 65, they said that the findings suggest that social and cultural factors could interfere with access to care even if a broader national health insurance plan is put into place.

They and others called for efforts to educate lower-income and minority patients about the benefits of procedures such as bypass surgery, and to show to physicians factors in the health-care system that might lead to racial inequities.

The new study, led by researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, is not the first to show a racial gap in medical care. Others have shown that access to kidney transplantation, cardiac catheterization and other high-tech procedures, including bypass surgeries, are affected by race.

by CNB