Preference for patient–provider ethnic concordance in Asian Americans

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The present study examined factors associated with the preference for patient–provider ethnic concordance in Asian Americans.

Design: With data drawn from the 2015 Asian American Quality of Life Survey (N = 2535), a logistic regression model of the preference for patient–provider ethnic concordance was tested with demographic (age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, education), health and access (chronic medical conditions, self-rated health, health insurance coverage), immigration-related (place of birth, length of stay in the US, English proficiency, acculturation), and adverse experience (perceived discrimination, communication problems in healthcare settings) variables.

Results: Over half (52.4%) of those in the sample preferred to be treated by a healthcare provider from their own ethnic background. In a multivariate model, the odds for preferring ethnic concordance were 1.52–1.64 times higher among individuals in earlier stages of immigration, language acquisition, and acculturation. Individuals who had experienced communication problems in healthcare settings presented 3.74 times higher odds for preferring ethnic concordance than did counterparts without such experience.

Conclusions: The results emphasized the value of paying attention to patient–provider concordance when treating Asian Americans either relatively new to the country or who have had previous problems communicating with health professionals. The findings also provide implications for improving workforce diversity in healthcare delivery and medical education.

KEYWORDS:

• Patient–provider ethnic concordance
• acculturation
• communication problems in healthcare settings
• Asian Americans

Acknowledgements

The support for data collection was provided by the City of Austin’s Asian American Quality of Life initiative. Editorial support with manuscript development was provided by the Cain Center for Nursing Research and the Center for Transdisciplinary Collaborative Research in Self-Management Science at The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging [R01AG047106] and City of Austin [Contract No. 26-8275-39].