BUSM Researchers Seek to Understand Racial Disparities in Treatment Intensification for Hypertension Management

Are disparities in blood pressure a function of differences in treatment intensification (TI)? Treatment intensification is when providers initiate and intensify therapy for patients with elevated blood pressure. It is complex and includes discussions between patients and providers. BUSM researchers, Meredith Manze, MPH, Adam Rose, MD, MSc, Michelle B. Orner, MPH, Dan Berlowitz, MD, MPH, and Nancy Kressin PhD, have found that Black patients received lower TI compared to Whites, which was partly explained by patient concerns about medications and more provider counseling. These disparities in TI were responsible, in part, for racial disparities in blood pressure control.

This study, which appears online in the April 13 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, explored the effects of patient race, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, beliefs about medications, perceptions of provider/discrimination, sodium intake, medication adherence, and provider counseling on treatment intensification with 819 black and white patients presenting with hypertension from an urban, safety-net hospital.

“This study offers insight to potential targets for interventions. Improved patient-provider communication and patient health education may have the potential to reduce racial disparities in TI and ultimately, BP control,” according to Meredith Manze, MPH.