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Aetna Grant Targets Disparities in Depression Treatment

Johns Hopkins receives $359,987 to address patient/physician relationship

BALTIMORE, MD, April 11, 2002 — Under a $359,987 grant from Aetna (NYSE: ΑET) and the Aetna Foundation, a researcher at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will work to improve communication between primary care physicians and African-American patients who may be suffering from depression.

Lisa A. Cooper, M.D., MPH, is the principal investigator for the three-year study, which is entitled, "Using Patient-Provider Communication Skills Training to Improve Depression Care for African Americans." The project aims to improve primary care physicians' communication skills as they relate to African-American patients with depression.

"Compared to Caucasian patients, African-Americans are more likely to receive care for depression from a primary care physician, rather than from a specialist," says Dr. Cooper. "This may explain why measures of quality care for depression are lower among African-Americans. Research suggests that differences in communication between African-American patients and their primary care doctors account for at least some of these poorer outcomes."

Under the Aetna grant, Johns Hopkins will create a CD-ROM that uses real actors and actual physicians to depict specific aspects of negotiating treatment for African-American patients with depression. "We'll recruit 30 physicians to work with the CD-ROM to improve their communication skills in this area," says Dr. Cooper, "and we will evaluate data collected by simulated patients at baseline, three months, six months and 12 months."

The Johns Hopkins grant is part of more than $850,000 in research grants earmarked for projects that identify and test practical means of reducing or eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health status and the delivery of health care. In addition, five leading pharmaceutical companies -- AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Pharmacia -- awarded more than $3 million in outcomes-based research grants targeting areas such as diabetes, asthma and pain management.

Grants were funded through the Academic Medicine and Managed Care Forum's (Forum) 2001 Quality Care Research Fund.

"The evidence of the damaging health consequences of racial and ethnic disparities in health care continues to be overwhelming," said Aetna Chairman and CEO John W. Rowe, M.D. "Since Aetna's past Quality Care Research Fund grants have included a category focused on improving health outcomes in underserved populations, we decided to dedicate our available research funds this year toward investigating strategies for reducing and ultimately eliminating these inequities."

In addition to the Hopkins grant, Aetna has awarded:

$359,891 to the UNDMJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (Brunswick, N.J.) for a study entitled "Assessing the Impact of Cultural Competency Training Using Participatory Quality Improvement Methods." Dr. Like will assess whether integrating a cultural competency training program into ongoing quality improvement activities at two large urban family practices results in improved physician knowledge, skills, attitudes and comfort levels in caring for patients from diverse backgrounds, and increased patient satisfaction with cross-cultural primary care clinical encounters.
$149,997 to the University of Michigan to examine "The Health Outcomes and Quality of Care of African Americans Living With Chronic Pain." Principal Investigator Carmen Renee Green, M.D., will compare the impact of chronic pain on the health of African-American and Caucasian Americans.

The awards bring the five-year total of Quality Care Research Fund grants to more than $30 million.

Institutions that received pharmaceutical grants include: Stanford University School of Medicine; University of Washington School of Pharmacy; Hartford Hospital; Penn State College of Medicine M.S. Hershey Medical Center; Thomas Jefferson University; University of Michigan; Weill Medical College of Cornell University; The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; Massachusetts General Hospital; New England Medical Center; University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; and University of Alabama School of Medicine (at Birmingham).

The Academic Medicine and Managed Care Forum was established by Aetna in 1996 to forge a closer working relationship between academic medicine and managed care. It is a unique partnership of many of the nation's top medical institutions working with managed care, major employers, federal agencies, private foundations, and pharmaceutical and information technology companies to address some of the most significant issues facing medicine today.

Aetna is one of the nation's leading providers of health care and related group benefits, serving 15.6 million health care members, 12.4 million dental members and 11.5 million group insurance customers, as of January 1, 2002. Information about Aetna is available at www.aetna.com.