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Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Treatment Of Dementia Among Medicare Beneficiaries, Ilene H. Zuckerman, Priscilla T. Ryder, Linda Simoni-Wastila, Thomas Shaffer, Masayo Sato, Lirong Zhao, Bruce Stuart

Scholarship and Professional Work – COPHS

Objectives—Numerous studies have documented disparities in health care utilization between non-Hispanic White and minority elders. We investigated differences in anti-dementia medication use between non-Hispanic White and minority community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries with dementia.

Methods—Using multivariate analysis with generalized estimating equations, we estimated prevalence ratios (PRs) for anti-dementia medication use by race/ethnicity for 1,120 beneficiaries with dementia from years 2001 through 2003 of the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey.

Results—After adjusting for demographics, socioeconomics, health care access and utilization, comorbidities, and service year, we found that anti-dementia medication use was approximately 30% higher among non-Hispanic Whites compared to other racial/ethnic groups (PR = …