A new study by researchers at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has found that 82.8 percent of all nursing home residents received flu shots for the winter of 2008-09. But the data shows that blacks are 23 percent less likely than whites to receive a flu shot. The survey examined patients records at more than 14,000 nursing homes.
The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, found that one of the reasons for the racial disparity is that black patients were more likely to refuse the shots than white patients. Some 12.9 percent of black patients refused to get a flu shot compared to 8.9 percent of white patients.
