An Analysis of Race-related Attitudes and Beliefs in Black Cancer Patients: Implications for Health Care Disparities

This research concerned relationships among Black cancer patients’ health care attitudes and behaviors (e.g., adherence, decisional control preferences,) and their race-related attitudes and beliefs shaped by (a) general life experiences (i.e., perceived discrimination, racial identity) and (b) experiences interacting with health care systems (i.e., physician mistrust, suspicion about medical care). Perceived discrimination, racial identity, and medical suspicion correlated weakly with one another; mistrust and suspicion correlated only moderately. Race-related attitudes and beliefs were associated with health care attitudes and behavior, but patterns of association varied. Physician mistrust and medical suspicion each independently correlated with adherence and decisional control preferences, but discrimination only correlated with control preferences. Associations among patients’ different racial attitudes/beliefs are more complex than previously assumed. Interventions that target patient attitudes/beliefs and health care disparities might be more productive if they focus on mistrust or suspicion specific to health care providers/systems and their correlates identified in this study.