Health Equity in Rheumatology: A Global Health Perspective

Abstract

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals emphasize the importance of ensuring the health and wellbeing of all human beings as a necessary precondition for peace and prosperity in the world. The spread of egalitarian values in the modern era has generated discussions about health disparities, with renewed calls to lessen health inequities for vulnerable and marginalized populations. This article briefly discusses health disparities and inequities in medicine, focusing on rheumatology. It is well documented that rheumatic disorders present differently among patients of different sex, gender, race and ethnicity. Despite this, most educational materials and guidelines in rheumatology use images and treatment regimens best suited for Caucasian patients. These differences are amplified by the limited recruitment of diverse patients in clinical trials, resulting in disease stereotypes that are based primarily on Caucasian patients, and do not represent disease manifestations across patient populations. These disparities create significant health inequities when combined with socioeconomic differences, and are further enhanced by implicit and explicit biases faced by patients from minoritized and marginalized communities when seeking healthcare services. Ultimately, this results in worse health outcomes for minority patients, further driving healthcare disparities and inequities across patient populations.There is an urgent need to address these disparities through multiple strategies including the diversification of the healthcare workforce, the introduction of implicit bias training for clinicians, and the creation of educational materials which accurately portray disease manifestations among patients of all races, genders and ethnicities.