Barriers to health care among people with disabilities who are members of underserved racial/ethnic groups: a scoping review of the literature

Abstract

Background: Understanding barriers to health care access experienced by people with disabilities who are members of underserved racial/ethnic groups is key to developing interventions to improve access.

Objective: To conduct a scoping review of the literature to examine the published literature on barriers to health care access for people with disabilities who are members of underserved racial/ethnic groups.

Data sources: Articles cited in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL between the year 2000 and June 19, 2013. In addition, table of contents of 4 journals and the reference lists of the included article were reviewed for potentially relevant titles.

Study selection and extraction: Studies examining barriers to health care access among adults aged 18-64 with disabilities who are members of an underserved racial/ethnic group were included. Two reviewers screened abstracts, screened each full-text article and extracted data, and discrepancies were resolved by consensus.

Results: Ten studies were identified that met all inclusion criteria. The most frequently described barriers were uninsurance, language, low education level, and no usual source of care. Barriers to health care access related to race or ethnicity (6 studies) and disability (1 study) were observed less often than those related to socioeconomic status or health care systems factors (9 studies).

Conclusions: Our findings reflect a critical gap in the literature. Greater attention is needed to subgroup differences including race, ethnicity, and culture within the population of people with disabilities.