African-American Use of Emergency Rooms

Paper Summary:

There are many reasons African-Americans turn to emergency rooms rather than their own primary care physicians, and many ways the United States could turn this health care problem around. This paper examines the age, gender, and income of African-Americans that arrive at the emergency department of the average hospital. It discusses types of insurance, if any, and the reasons why they utilize the E.D., including chronic conditions vs. acute conditions. The paper also looks at how the health system is viewed by African-Americans and what is being done to change and/or correct these conceptions.

From the Paper:

"Another major obstacle is poverty. Eliminating poverty in our country would not only result in a better standard of living for all the poor, it would result in better health care. As African Americans move up the income ladder, they tend to rely less on emergency room medicine. They have more preventative medicine choices, and they have insurance of some form to help with costs. Poverty and no insurance are two of the biggest factors in emergency room usage, and eliminating poverty could change the figures dramatically. So could some form of health insurance for all Americans. Education should include an understanding that relying so completely on emergency rooms for all health care is a dangerous practice, and that families should actively attempt to find other health care choices rather than using emergency rooms so completely."

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