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An epidemiologist in my department is getting ready to kick off a study that looks at a very specific racial disparity in health care. They've noticed that there are racial differences in who decides to follow "best practice" recommended treatments for colon cancer. Almost everybody was observed to have surgery but there was a huge difference in who opts to get the recommended chemotherapy after the surgery. They will be doing a qualitative type of study on the reasons for patients opting out of chemo. They want to see if it has to do with how the recommendation is presented, a lack of understanding of the recommendation, socioeconomic obstacles (transportation, health insurance, etc), some combination of those things, or what other factors lead to this. It should be an interesting one, although the data will be difficult to code and analyze.
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