Attitudes of Black,White, and Hispanic Community Residents Toward Seeking Medical Help

With regard to racial/ethnic health disparities, a variable that has not been well explored is the person’s willingness to seek medical aid when symptoms appear. Until recently, there has been no comprehensive scale to measure these predispositions and their significance for public health. This study’s purpose was to determine whether specific attitudinal differences might constitute barriers to medical help-seeking for racial/ethnic subgroups. In a sample of 380 community residents responding to a mailed survey in the Hartford, CT metropolitan area, racial/ethnic differences were examined for four attitudinal aspects of medical help-seeking: action/intention, cynicism/fatalism, confidence in medical professionals, and fear/avoidance. Multivariate analyses controlling for other demographic, health crisis, and health insurance variables indicated that black, white, and Hispanic subgroups differed strongly on the battery of medical help-seeking attitudes. Although all groups were generally favorable to help-seeking, black and Hispanic respondents expressed more favorable, pro-help-seeking attitudes than did white respondents. Their attitudes were highly significant for action/intention and confidence in medical professionals. This study showed no evidence that racial/ethnic health disparities might result from negative predispositions as barriers to medical help-seeking.