Dr. Goyal said he hopes the study will stimulate further exploration of the reasons underlying these differences. “These race-related disparities likely go beyond a genetic or physiologic basis; consequently, there is a need to develop population-based interventions to reduce the significant burden of hospitalizations faced by blacks with heart failure,” Dr. Goyal said. “Future research should focus on examining the unique vulnerabilities of blacks with heart failure that may underlie this finding.”

Dr. Jia-Rong Wu from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing has explored health disparities in patients with heart failure based on ethnicity and financial status and agrees that money and higher rates of other health conditions are important factors.

“However,” she said by email, “in addition to socioeconomic and clinical factors, we found some behavioral factors were associated with cardiac/heart failure hospitalizations. Therefore, it is important to optimize heart failure management and control/manage risk factors (smoking, hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia),” Dr. Wu said.

“It is equally important to develop interventions/strategies to help black patients with heart failure to improve self-care behaviors to eliminate the disparities.”