Researching racial and ethnic disparities in emergency medicine

Abstract

The recent Institute of Medicine report "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care" chronicles a growing body of literature describing racial and ethnic disparities in health care delivery. It suggests a research agenda designed to better understand and eventually eliminate these disparities. Prompted by this report, Academic Emergency Medicine convened a Consensus Conference on Disparities in Emergency Health Care on May 28, 2003, in Boston. One of the goals of that meeting was to develop a research agenda for emergency medicine researchers working on disparities in health care. This report describes the results of the consensus conference and suggests such a research agenda.