Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
College/Unit
School of Medicine
Department/Program/Center
Medicine
Abstract
Background
Racial disparities exist in the care provided to advanced cancer patients. This article describes an investigation designed to advance the science of healthcare disparities by isolating the effects of patient race and patient activation on physician behavior using novel standardized patient (SP) methodology.
Methods/design
The Social and Behavioral Influences (SBI) Study is a National Cancer Institute sponsored trial conducted in Western New York State, Northern/Central Indiana, and lower Michigan. The trial uses an incomplete randomized block design, randomizing physicians to see patients who are either black or white and who are “typical” or “activated” (e.g., ask questions, express opinions, ask for clarification, etc.). The study will enroll 91 physicians.
Discussion
The SBI study addresses important gaps in our knowledge about racial disparities and methods to reduce them in patients with advanced cancer by using standardized patient methodology. This study is innovative in aims, design, and methodology and will point the way to interventions that can reduce racial disparities and discrimination and draw links between implicit attitudes and physician behaviors.
Digital Commons Citation
Elias, Cezanne M.; Shields, Cleveland G.; Griggs, Jennifer J.; Fiscella, Kevin; Christ, Sharon L.; Colbert, Joseph; Henry, Stephen G.; Hoh, Beth G.; Hunte, Haslyn E R; Marshall, Mary; Mohile, Supriya G.; Plumb, Sandy; Tejani, Mohamedtaki A.; Venuti, Alison; and Epstein, Ronald M., "The social and behavioral influences (SBI) study: study design and rationale for studying the effects of race and activation on cancer pain management" (2017). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 1498.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/1498
Source Citation
Elias, C.M., Shields, C.G., Griggs, J.J. et al. The social and behavioral influences (SBI) study: study design and rationale for studying the effects of race and activation on cancer pain management. BMC Cancer 17, 575 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-017-3564-2
Comments
© The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.