Explaining Disparities in Treatment Seeking: The Case of Infertility

Objective: To present an integrated model of help-seeking, review empirical work in its support, and show its application to the explanation of racial and ethnic disparities in infertility help-seeking. Conclusions: A help-seeking model provides a plausible explanation of observed disparities in infertility help-seeking. In addition to being related to income, race and ethnicity is related to prior experience with doctors, marital status, parity, knowledge and attitudes toward reproductive technology, and attitudes supporting spiritual rather than technological solutions to health problems