THE ROLES OF RACE AND SOCIOECONOMIC-FACTORS IN HEALTH-SERVICES RESEARCH

For decades data have been collected comparing health care in racial a nd ethnic groups. The use of such groups in health services research a ssumes that standard, reliable, and valid definitions of race and ethn icity exist and that these definitions are used consistently. In fact, race is a term often used, but ill defined. It can incorporate biolog ical, social, and cultural characteristics of patients and can refer t o both genetic and behavioral traits. Various investigators have repor ted differences between racial and ethnic groups in health status, dis ease manifestation and outcome, resource utilization, and health care access, often specifying neither a definition of race nor the measurem ent they used to classify their study populations. The role of race as an explanatory variable in health services research requires greater scrutiny than many researchers currently provide. Many studies use rac e as a proxy for other socioeconomic factors not collected in the rese arch effort. This article explores the ambiguities about race as an ex planatory variable that render such research difficult to interpret. W e suggest that health services researchers focus on nonracial socioeco nomic characteristics that might be both more informative and more use ful in guiding policy formation.