Racial Disparities in Barriers to Care for Patients With Diabetic Retinopathy in a Nationwide Cohort.

Purpose: To ascertain specific barriers of care among patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR) from different racial/ethnic groups.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we included adult participants in the National Institutes of Health All of Us Research Program with DR who answered questions in the Healthcare Access & Utilization survey and Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) survey. Logistic regression was used to study the association between barriers to care and race/ethnicity.

Results: Our cohort included 885 DR patients who answered the Healthcare Access & Utilization survey and 385 DR patients who responded to the SDoH survey. After adjusting for confounders, Hispanic individuals were more likely than non-Hispanic White individuals to report delaying getting medical care due to not being able to get child care (odds ratio [OR] = 6.57 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.67-27.8]). Furthermore, compared to non-Hispanic White individuals, non-Hispanic Black individuals were significantly more likely to report being treated with less respect (OR = 2.62 [95% CI, 1.15-5.80]), treated with less courtesy (OR = 2.51 [95% CI, 1.01-5.92]), and receive poorer service than other people (OR = 2.85 [95% CI, 1.25-6.34]) when they go to a doctor's office or other healthcare provider.

Conclusions: We found that Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black individuals with DR reported greater delays/barriers to care compared to non-Hispanic White individuals even after controlling for individualized socioeconomic factors.

Translational Relevance: This study highlights the importance of taking steps to promote health equity, such as increasing access to child care resources and reducing implicit bias among eye care providers, to increase access to care and prevent vision loss from DR.