BOSTON, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Minority adults are more likely than white adults to receive counseling about alcohol abuse from their doctor, a new U.S. study says.
African-American and Hispanic patients were twice as likely as their white counterparts to receive alcohol counseling, Harvard researchers found in a study of 15,000 individuals appearing in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
The good news is that it may be a rare instance of minority patients receiving better or more appropriate care, the researchers write. But the bad news may be that doctors are more likely to suspect alcoholism among their non-white patients.
That assumption is unfortunate because African-Americans are actually less likely to be binge drinkers than other patients, said study author Kenneth Mukamal, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
The discrepancy could mean alcoholism is being over-reported among minorities and under-reported among whites, Mukamal said. "This will lead to perpetuation of stereotypes."
Doctors should be asking about alcohol use, but should be asking about it across the board, he added.
