Beware of unawareness

"The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this. You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email. This paper studies racial/ethnic disparities in awareness of chronic diseases using biomarker data from the 2006 HRS. We estimate a 3-step sequential probit model which accounts for selection into: (1) participating in biomarker collection; (2) having illness (hypertension or diabetes); (3) being aware of illness. Contrary to studies reporting that African-Americans are more aware of having hypertension than non-Latino whites, we do not find this conclusion holds after self-selection and severity are considered. Likewise, African-Americans and Latinos are less aware of having diabetes compared to non-Latino whites. Disparities in unawareness are exacerbated when we limit the sample to untreated respondents"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.