A review in Dermatology and Therapy highlights the gaps in care that persist for dermatology patients with skin of color (SOC), and where are the measures being taken to address those gaps.
Even with greater attention on healthcare disparities in recent years, efforts to eliminate disparities have not yet been effectively introduced in dermatology education, research, and more, investigators wrote.
The review's first author was Andrew Alexis, MD, MPH, a professor of clinical dermatology and vice-chair for diversity and inclusion with Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. The authors were not available for interview, but we have distilled and organized excerpts from the paper into a Q&A format to make it useful for readers.
What was the impetus for this review?
While a precise definition of SOC remains to be widely adopted, it has been broadly used to refer to populations who identify as other than non-Hispanic white: Black/African, Hispanic/Latina/o/x/e, Asian/Pacific Islander, American Indian/Native Alaskan, Indigenous Australian, Middle Eastern, or biracial/multiracial. It is also commonly defined as including individuals with Fitzpatrick skin types IV-VI and those who share similar cutaneous characteristics and disorders, as well as reaction patterns to those conditions. As such, these populations often exhibit variations in epidemiology, clinical presentation, disease burden, and quality of life compared with their non-SOC counterparts, often leading to inaccurate diagnoses, reduced patient satisfaction and compliance, suboptimal outcomes, and increased health-related inequities.
