Black patients living in counties with more Black primary care physicians live longer, according to a study published April 14 in JAMA Network.
The study, led by researchers from HHS's Health Resources and Services Administration, examined the association between Black primary care physician workforce representation and survival outcomes across over 1,600 counties in the United States in 2009, 2014 and 2019.
County-level representation was determined by the ratio of the proportion of PCPs who identified as Black divided by the proportion of the population who identified as Black.
The study found that these counties with high representation had lower disparities in mortality rates between Black and white residents, in addition to being linked to a longer life expectancy for Black populations. This connection was present regardless of whether the residents saw these physicians or not and was more pronounced in counties with higher rates of poverty.
This is the first study to link higher presence of Black physicians with lower mortality and longer life expectancy in Black populations, according to an editorial published alongside the study written by Monica Peek, MD, the Ellen H. Block Professor for Health Justice of Medicine at UChicago Medicine.