Patient-Physician Role Relationships and Patient Activation: The Moderating Effects of Race and Ethnicity

The goals of this article were to empirically describe how racial and ethnic minorities compare with Whites in terms of their role relationships with physicians and examine how differences in those relationships are associated (positively or negatively) with patient activation for minority groups, relative to Whites. Based on analysis of survey data collected from a random sample of 8,140 individuals with chronic illness, we found that both Blacks and Hispanics generally perceive their role relationships with physicians to be less equitable than do Whites and that the benefits to minorities from more equitable role relationships with physicians are not uniform across dimensions of patient-physician relationships or racial and ethnic subgroups. Based on these findings, we submit that race and ethnicity should be considered in the development and assessment of tailored interventions to improve activation.