Elderly Black Patients Less Likely To Get Flu Vaccination.

2001 OCT 10 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

While the rate of influenza vaccination is higher for Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in managed care plans, racial disparity in vaccination is not reduced, according to an article in the September 26, 2001, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Eric C. Schneider, MD, MSc, of the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues analyzed survey data to determine whether the magnitude of racial disparity in influenza vaccination is smaller among managed care enrollees than among those with fee-for-service insurance. They compared information on 13,674 black and white beneficiaries

who took part in the 1996 Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS), an in-person interview that collected data from a representative sample of health care beneficiaries.

According to background information cited in the article, influenza vaccination rates have increased nationally over the past decade; however, blacks are persistently less likely than whites to receive flu vaccinations.

"The reasons for racial disparity are incompletely understood but may include limited minority access to primary care, failure of clinicians to vaccinate minority patients during health care visits, limited awareness among minority patients of the need for vaccination, or misconceptions about the costs, adverse effects, risks, and benefits of vaccination," the authors write.

Whether managed care could reduce racial disparities in the use of preventive services is not known. Prepaid health plans have a financial incentive to increase delivery of potentially cost-saving preventive services, such as influenza vaccination, to elderly people and high-risk individuals, which may reduce health plan costs in the short-term.