Commentary: Socioeconomic inequalities in indicator scores for diabetes: poor quality or poor measures?

摘要

Hippisley-Cox et al report on scores for quality indicators for diabetes among a large number of UK patients and practices and how these vary depending on sex, ethnicity, and material deprivation. For many of the indicators, scores were worse for women and worse in practices with a high proportion of ethnic patients and those with high levels of material deprivation. This revelation of worse measures of care for women, poor people, and people from ethnic minority groups is not unique; there is a robust literature in America showing these same findings across numerous conditions, and similar findings have been reported in England. The question relevant to policy, particularly in light of the new general practitioner contract, is what do these differences in scores mean?