The effects of race on the use of physicians' services

In recent years several studies have examined the role of race in determining both health care status and access to care. Most studies in this area have focused primarily on health care status, although the issue of access is often mentioned. While there are many reasons for differences in health status, access to resources may play an important role. Using a Poisson regression, a decomposition analysis, and data from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey, the authors of this article show that significant differences remain in the number of physician office visits for whites and African-Americans. The proportion of the racial differences in the number of office visits not explained by differences in objective factors is relatively large. In fact, the results show that a considerable part of the racial differential can be explained by differential responses to these objective factors. This implies that, even if all the objective factors that affect the demand for visits are equalized across race, significant differences in the utilization of health care services will remain.