Getting to the root cause of differing health outcomes as a function of race/ethnicity has been a complex journey of explorations of inherent differences in demographics, comorbidities, and fundamental biology. Where differences in health outcomes persist after accounting for plausible causes, the presence of disparate care is acknowledged. When discovered, disparate care is a disquieting phenomenon that requires our attention and provokes changes in behavior.
In the pages of JAMA Cardiology, we have continued to highlight racial differences in cardiovascular medicine not only because differences exist—such is well known—but because well-done contemporary research argues that the differences may be narrowing and in certain situations are nil, which would more precisely reflect global variations in care not specifically limited to race (and/or ethnicity).