Fund-supported research has found that perceptions of disrespect affect whether patients heed doctors' advice or return for treatment. In an analysis of the 2001 Health Care Quality Survey, George Washington University's Janice Blanchard, M.D., and RAND's Nicole Lurie, M.D., found that minorities are significantly more likely than whites to report being treated with disrespect by their providers.⁽¹³⁾ Respondents who reported disrespectful treatment were more likely to report not following their doctors' advice and putting off needed medical care.

As a first step toward developing standards for cultural competency training, implementation, and assessment, the Fund has commissioned a series of papers exploring aspects of cultural competency and patient-centered care for minorities. Using the papers as a basis for discussion, the Fund will host a roundtable meeting of experts to determine next steps in this effort.

The Fund also seeks to promote awareness of health care disparities, and of federal and state policies that can help reduce them. Support for press conferences and a congressional briefing, for example, enabled the Summit Health Institute for Research and Education, Inc., to inform key policymakers about findings from the Institute of Medicine's Unequal Treatment report and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's National Healthcare Disparities Reports. Summit also provided information and technical assistance to national advocacy organizations that promote policies addressing health disparities.

In June 2005, the Fund and the Alliance for Health Reform sponsored a roundtable discussion, "Leveraging Quality Data to Eliminate Disparities," that explored ways of using quality data to identify disparities and applying these methods to publicly funded health programs. One of the panelists, Bruce Siegel, M.D., a professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, presented Fund-supported work showing that public hospitals are able to report quality indicators stratified by race and ethnicity. Siegel showed that this can help hospitals identify areas where quality improvement efforts can not only improve care but also reduce inequities in the care delivered.