Black Patients Still Have Less Access to Advanced Heart Failure Care
Doctors have known for decades that Black people are more likely to develop and die of heart failure than white people. But a new study suggests that racial disparities persist in access to treatments that can help advanced heart failure patients live longer and have a better quality of life.For the study, researchers examined data on 100 Black patients and 277 white patients treated at one of 21 specialized heart failure centers in the United States. Overall, 11 percent of Black patients received a heart transplant or a mechanical heart pump known as a ventricular assist device (VAD), compared with 22 percent of white patients.This racial disparity in access to care persisted even after researchers accounted for heart failure severity and several so-called social determinants of health, such as whether…