Feinberg researchers discover heart failure care disparities in Asian American communities

Illustration by Chelsea Lim

The study found that Vietnamese men were 32% less likely to receive optimal medical therapy and Filipina women were 48% less likely to receive defect-free care.

Amy L. Wong, Reporter

February 4, 2026

A recent research study co-authored by six Feinberg School of Medicine researchers and six researchers from other institutions found differences in heart failure care between Asian American ethnic groups.

Published in January, the study found that Vietnamese men were 32% less likely to receive optimal medical therapy and Filipina women were 48% less likely to receive defect-free care compared to white adults.

Feinberg Prof. Xiaoning Huang, the lead author, said heart failure care is highly standardized with consistent medications and processes. Despite this, he said the study found significant inconsistencies between Asian American ethnic groups.

“Asians as a whole, in American literature, are often viewed as the group doing well,” Huang said. “But then, through many research (studies), including ours, we show that there are significant health disparities between different ethnic groups.”

A patient must be given every medication in a medication group eligible for them in order to receive optimal medical therapy. These medications address heart failure recovery, heart function, re-hospitalization and death, study co-author and Feinberg Prof. Dr. Nilay Shah said.

If a patient did not have shortcomings in optimal medical therapy and other aspects of care, such as heart failure education, then they were said to have received “defect-free care” in the study.

Shah said while the study identified differences in heart failure care, the next step is to investigate why the disparities exist.

“I’m hopeful that really anybody who is interested in trying to equitably advance health tries to think about ways to improve the reflection and representation of diverse populations in the U.S. in the type of data that we have,” Shah said.

Over 800 U.S. hospitals were sampled. Although Huang considers the data to be of high quality, he said one limitation of the data is that it does not provide patient information like socioeconomic status, education or language.

These factors can impact the care a patient receives, Huang said. For example, he said some patients with poor health insurance will describe their symptoms as less severe because they want to avoid expensive medication.

He added that the data does not include people who are suffering with heart failure and do not seek medical care at a hospital, he said.

“It’s also very important to raise awareness and to have broader efforts to reduce barriers and improve access to high-quality care for all patients,” Huang said.

To improve the quality of care, Huang said the health system can collect information about patients separated by their Asian ethnic group.

Without disaggregating the data, he said he worries that differences in heart failure care will go unnoticed.

“If we use the aggregate Asian category, then all these differences across ethnic groups will become statistically invisible,” Huang said. “We will never know the disparities.”

Study co-author and Feinberg Prof. Namratha Kandula said she was puzzled that Filipina women were less likely to receive defect-free care, given the notable presence of Filipino nurses in the U.S. healthcare system. Four percent of nurses in the U.S. are Filipino, even though they account for 1% of the general U.S. population, according to an article published by the National Institutes of Health Record.

Kandula said some hospitals may be hesitant to collect disaggregated data because they may view it as too time-consuming of a process. However, she added that more efficient data collection could solve this issue.

She also said she was unsure why heart failure care differed considerably between the different Asian ethnic groups. By collecting data based on race, Kandula said health practitioners can identify ways to improve care based on which aspect the subgroup experiences suboptimal attention in.

“It could be a lot of things like, is it an information gap? Is bias involved? Are there language barriers?” Kandula said. “That’s where maybe talking to patients, trying to understand their perspectives on it might be helpful.”

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