Prusynski and Williams-York highlight disparities in physical therapy outcomes

Assistant Professor Rachel Prusynski, DPT, Ph.D., and Associate Professor Bernadette Williams-York, PT, DSc, along with colleagues from across the country, recently published a scoping review in Physical Therapy, to synthesize and summarize existing literature on racial and ethnic disparities in physical therapy outcomes. 

For the study, four databases from 2001 and 2021 were searched for articles. In the end, of 1511 article abstracts, 65 articles were included in this review. Of these papers, all 65 included non-Hispanic White patients as the reference group. Where outcomes were reported by race, Black patients and Hispanic or Latino patients were most likely to be reported, while Asian, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander patients were not often reported. 

The review found that worse outcomes after physical therapy were reported more often for all marginalized racial and ethnic groups when compared to White patients. However, marginalized groups did have the same or better outcomes when returning to the community after in-patient rehabilitation. 

Overall, this review concluded that gaps remain in understanding disparities in physical therapy outcomes. 

The review, titled “Disparities in Physical Therapy Outcomes Based on Race and Ethnicity: A Scoping Review,” was published in the October 2024 issue of Physical Therapy.