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Racial Differences in Hormone Replacement Therapy Prescriptions

From the Division of Epidemiology, National Center for Health Statistics/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hyattsville, Maryland; the Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland; and the Department of Biostatistics, Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.

Address reprint requests to: Jane V. R. Marsh, MS Department of Epidemiology Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health 615 North Wolfe Street, Box 1368 Baltimore, MD 21205 E-mail: jmarsh{at}jhsph.edu

Objective: To examine racial differences in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) use by analyzing the relative risks and rates of HRT prescriptions for black and white women.

Methods: Data on visits to hospital outpatient departments and office-based physicians by black and white women aged 45–64 years were obtained from 25,203 visits sampled in the 1993–1995 National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys and National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys. The relative effect of race on the provision of an HRT prescription at an ambulatory visit was estimated by controlling confounders using logistic regression. Population-based rates of physician visits and visits with HRT prescriptions were also calculated to address issues involving access to care.

Results: Approximately 98,787,000 annual visits were made by black and white women 45–64 years of age, 9.2% of which involved prescriptions for HRT. The percentage of visits by black women in which prescriptions for HRT were reported (4.5%) was roughly half that of white women (9.7%). The association persisted after controlling for type of physician, practice type, geographic region, payment source, and non-HRT prescription(s) (odds ratio 2.1; 95% confidence interval 1.5, 2.9). The rate of ambulatory care among black women (3.82 visits per year per woman) was virtually identical to that of white women (3.94 visits per year), whereas the rate of visits with HRT prescriptions for white women was twice as high as for black women (0.38 and 0.17 visits per year, respectively).

Conclusion: Apparent racial differences in HRT use persist after controlling for physician and visit factors not explored in previous studies.

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