Journal Articles

Skin tone bias and wound care: highlighting the current evidence and addressing the gaps in knowledge of dark skin tones

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Skin tone bias and wound care: highlighting the current evidence and addressing the gaps in knowledge of dark skin tones

Neesha Oozageer Gunowa
18 March 2022

Disparities and biases in healthcare delivery due to ethnicity have been highlighted. A PubMed literature search was conducted in December 2021 to identify the current evidence and gaps in skin tone bias and wound care. A total of 23 articles published between 2016 and 2021 were identified on skin tones and wound care using a range of related search terms. The lack of findings in the literature, plus the guidance in the Wounds UK Best Practice Statement (Dhoonmoon et al, 2021), highlighted the need for more research around wound care and skin tones. In wound care education, there is a need for use of case studies and photographs of dark skin tones to aid knowledge across the full range of skin tones, and to address the gap in bias around light skin tones (Dhoonmoon et al, 2021). Additionally, the only relevant papers about specific wound types focused on pressure ulcers. Therefore, more evidence is needed around other common wounds to aid education and practice.

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