A Kansas City cardiologist has co-authored a study in the New England Journal of Medicine finding that Black and Hispanic patients of cardiac arrest are significantly less likely to receive CPR from bystanders than white patients.
Dr. Paul Chan, at St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, found that Black and Hispanic individuals are 37% less likely to receive CPR in public. They’re also 26% less likely to receive CPR in their homes.
Chan told KCUR’s Up To Date that the problem is the culmination of structural barriers in minority health care. The majority of CPR training is conducted in white communities, and the cost to get trained is often too expensive.
“It costs about 100 to $200 to do the CPR training, and for many individuals in low income communities, which happen to lean more Black and Hispanic, that's a barrier," Chan says.
Chan says he is working to connect with leaders in the Kansas City metro area to make CPR training more accessible in minority communities.
- Dr. Paul Chan, cardiologist, Saint Luke's Health System
