• Benjamin Grant, Orysya Soroka, Elizabeth Baquero, Joanna Bryan Ringel, Andrea Cherrington, Doyle M Cummings, Jacqueline R Halladay, Arvind Rajan, and Monika M Safford.
• Weill Cornell Medical College, Weill Cornell Division of General Internal Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
• J Gen Intern Med. 2025 Jan 22.

BackgroundBlack people are more likely to have hypertension and report lower quality of care than White people. Patient-provider race concordance could improve perceived quality of care, potentially lessening disparities.ObjectiveInvestigate the association between patient-provider race concordance and patient-perceived quality of chronic disease care, as measured by the Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC) scale.DesignCross-sectional analysis of baseline data from a randomized trial with Black patients with persistently uncontrolled hypertension.SettingParticipants received care at one of 69 rural primary care practices in Alabama and North Carolina.ParticipantsThree hundred and ninety-one Black patients with persistently uncontrolled hypertension enrolled in the Southeastern Collaboration to Improve Blood Pressure Control (SEC) trial.Main MeasurePACIC overall scores and subscale scores (patient activation, delivery system, goal setting, problem solving, follow-up).ResultsOf 1592 patients enrolled in the SEC trial, 391 participants self-reported race concordance data and completed the PACIC. Most participants were age < 60 (52.4%), 65.2% identified as women, and 50.1% were beneficiaries of either Medicare or Medicaid. Those with patient-provider race concordance reported higher overall PACIC scores (58.8% vs 46.1%, p < 0.05), with higher sub-scores of goal setting (60.9% vs 46.8%, p < 0.05) and problem-solving (62.7% vs 48.0%, p < 0.05) compared to those without race concordance. Poisson regression models of participants age ≥ 60 years demonstrated that those with race concordance were more likely to have higher overall PACIC scores (RR 1.53, 95% CI 1.17-2.0, p = 0.002), goal-setting subscale scores (RR 1.63, 95% CI 1.24-2.15, p = 0.0005), and problem-solving subscale scores (RR 1.66, 95% CI 1.29-2.14, p < 0.0001). Those < 60 years of age had no significant findings comparing those with and without race concordance.ConclusionsOlder Black patients perceived greater quality of care if their providers were also Black.© 2025. The Author(s).

5 keywords...

hide…