Changing Diagnostic and Treatment Criteria for Chronic Illness: A Critical Consideration of Their Impact on Low-Income Hispanic Patients

Abstract

Low-income Hispanics are often identified as especially at risk for common chronic conditions like diabetes and are targeted for aggressive screening and treatment. Anthropologists and other social scientists have extensively explored barriers and facilitators to the management of chronic illnesses in minority populations but have not yet considered the impact of recently lowered diagnostic and treatment thresholds on such groups. In this paper, we critically review recent changes in diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol diagnostic and treatment standards that have dramatically increased the number of people being treated for these conditions. Drawing on an ethnographic study of chronic illness management in two Hispanic-serving clinics in the Midwest, we examine how these new standards are being applied and consider the resulting health care challenges their patients face. Our analysis leads us to question the value of promoting narrowly defined treatment goals, particularly when patients lack reliable access to the health care resources these goals require. While improving the health of low-income Hispanics is a worthwhile goal, it is important to consider whether these efforts may be promoting over-diagnosis and over-treatment, drawing them into an expensive chronic patient role with uncertain benefit.