Addressing Racial Healthcare Disparities: How Can We Shift the Focus from Patients to Providers?

The prevailing tendency to frame racial healthcare disparities in terms of patient race rather than providers racial stereotypes and biases is reflected in the prevailing training approaches aimed at improving the care of racial minority patients. The most popular training approach for reducing racial healthcare disparities focuses on improving providers cultural competency, defined as the ability of individuals to establish effective interpersonal and working relationships that supersede cultural differences by recognizing the importance of social and cultural influences on patients.