NaDiRa short study: Racism in the health sector

Project team:

• Jan Paul Heisig
• Jianghong Li
• Susanne Veit
• Ruta Yemane

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Project description:

Our project will conduct one of the largest field experiments to date on inequalities in access to health care in Germany. We want to find out whether people's insurance status, migration background and socio-economic status influence whether and how they are treated by different doctors. In this way, our project will shed light on the roles that discrimination and structural racism play in the health care system.

Results:

We will conduct an online survey among practising doctors and psychotherapists. Participants will answer questions about their daily practice, what they know about inequalities in health care and whether they prefer certain patients. The questionnaire has been programmed and the ethics vote is available. Due to the ongoing pandemic and the associated increased workload in the health sector, we have postponed the start of the survey for the time being.

Surprising insights:

At the beginning of 2021, we conducted a pre-test with a smaller number of participants. We discovered that the 20-minute survey was too long and that the response rate was correspondingly low. The survey was then adapted to take a maximum of ten minutes. A new pre-test of the shortened version among doctors in specialties that are less affected by pandemic-related overload took place at the end of November 2021.

Significance for practice:

The results of the survey promise to provide insights into the extent of and causes of inequality and discrimination in health care.

Short studies in preparation for the Racism Monitor:

In order to prepare a comprehensive Racism Monitor, DeZIM called on scholars* from the DeZIM research community in 2020 to develop innovative study ideas. These should extend existing research projects, pursue new and innovative approaches or build an infrastructure to research racism. By 2021, more than 120 researchers at the six locations of the DeZIM research community had conducted a total of 34 short studies. These are divided into six thematic priorities:

• Health system
• Education system and labour market
• Institutional racism
• Dealing with experiences of racism
• Participation and the media
• Racist ideologies and attitudes