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The Minnesota Department of Health’s Health Economics Program (HEP) has released an issue brief with findings from a survey of Minnesota patients’ experiences with discrimination—Patient Experiences with Healthcare Discrimination in Minnesota (PDF).
Key findings include:
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Nearly half of Minnesota survey participants (47.2%) reported they experienced discrimination while seeking healthcare services.
- The most common reasons for discrimination that survey participants cited were age-related (20.7%) and body weight-related (20.2%)
- There were differences in the type of discrimination experienced across population groups: Black, Indigenous and People of Color participants as a group were most likely to cite race-based discrimination (17.8%); trans and nonbinary participants were most likely to report discrimination related to gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation (72.7%)
- Most survey respondents who experienced discrimination (86.3%) believed their healthcare was negatively affected by their experience with discrimination. Roughly one-third of participants who experienced healthcare discrimination said it caused them to stop their healthcare early (37.1%) or avoid seeking healthcare except in emergencies (33.6%)
When asked about what solutions they saw to reduce or eliminate discrimination, survey respondents felt that providers needed to have more time to care for patients and listen more to patients’ needs.
Learn more
Read the Patient Experiences with Healthcare Discrimination in Minnesota (PDF) issue brief for more on survey results and potential solutions. Detailed survey results are available in the Supplemental Appendices—Patient Experiences with Healthcare Discrimination in Minnesota (PDF).
Visit the Minnesota Health Access Survey (MNHA) webpage for more information.
The survey and publication were completed in partnership with the University of Minnesota School of Public Health’s State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC).
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