JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Researchers, clinicians, and policy makers face 3 challenges in writing about race and ethnicity: accounting for the limitations of race/ethnicity data; distinguishing between race/ethnicity as a risk factor or as a risk marker; and finding a way to write about race/ethnicity that does not stigmatize and does not imply a we/they dichotomy between health professionals and populations of color. Journals play an important role in setting standards for research and policy literature. The authors outline guidelines that might be used when race and ethnicity are addressed in biomedical publications.
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Black patients hospitalized with heart failure reportedly receive poorer quality of care and have worse outcomes than white patients. Because previous studies have been based on selected patient populations treated more than a decade ago, it is unclear if racial differences in quality of care and outcomes currently exist in the United States. ⋯ Black Medicare patients hospitalized with heart failure received comparable quality of care and had slightly higher rates of readmission but had lower mortality rates up to 1 year after hospitalization than did white patients.