Disparities Among African-Americans
• African-Americans and Hispanics were 1.3 times more likely to have activity limitation; 1.6 times more likely to have work limitations, and 1.9 times more likely to have severe joint pain than Whites.
• African-Americans, compared to Whites, report a higher proportion of work limitations (39.5% vs. 28%) and a higher prevalence of arthritis-attributable work limitation (6.6% vs. 4.6%).
• African-Americans have a higher prevalence of knee symptoms, radiographic knee osteoarthritis and symptomatic knee osteoarthritis than Whites.
• White men were 2 to 5 times more likely to undergo total knee replacement and 2 to 3 times more likely to undergo total hip replacement than African-American men.
• In 2000, African-American Medicare enrollees were 37 percent less likely than White Medicare enrollees to undergo total knee replacements. In 2006, the disparity increased to 39 percent.
• Even after adjusting for insurance and health access, African Americans are almost 50 percent less likely to undergo total knee replacement than Whites.
• African-Americans are more likely to use praying and hoping as a primary means to manage their osteoarthritis pain than Whites.
• When it comes to the uptake of proven medical treatments for OA, such as total joint replacement (TJR), differences in perceptions contribute to a situation in which African-Americans are less likely than Whites to have heard of TJR as a treatment for OA or to have had a family member or friend who had benefited from TJR.
• Due to higher rates of obesity and routinely delayed utilization of surgical interventions, African-American patients have worse preoperative hip and knee function before arthroplasty than White patients.
• Non-Hispanic Blacks have the highest rates of obesity (44.1%) compared with Mexican Americans (39.3%), all Hispanics (37.9%) and non-Hispanic whites (32.6%)
If you have questions about arthritis pain, or to find out if you suffer from arthritis at all, be sure to visit your doctor.
For more information about how to recognize and live with arthritis, visit BDO’s Arthritis Channel.
For more information on musculoskeletal health disparities, please visit Movement Is Life.