Friday, Jul 24, 2026 The claims desk. Receipts included. POWERED BY LENZ
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HEALTH

The Claim

Discrimination by nurses is a common problem reported by foreign-born and culturally diverse patients in Western hospitals.

The Short Version

Substantial evidence shows that migrant, foreign-born, and culturally diverse patients in Western hospitals often report discriminatory experiences, and nurses are specifically named in several studies and reviews. The claim fits the literature’s overall pattern. However, some evidence combines nurses with healthcare staff more broadly, and “common” is usually based on repeated qualitative reporting rather than a nurse-specific prevalence rate.

Caveats

  • Several cited studies examine discrimination by healthcare providers generally, not nurses alone, so nurse-specific attribution is not uniform across the evidence base.
  • The word “common” is supported mainly by consistent qualitative and review findings, not by a single cross-national nurse-specific prevalence estimate.
  • Some listed sources concern discrimination against migrant or minority nurses rather than discrimination experienced by patients, so they are not direct support for this claim.

The Receipts

  1. Diversity and Discrimination in Health Care

    StatPearls - NCBI - NIH

  2. African born black nurses' perception of their U.S. work environment

    ScienceDirect

  3. The experience of discrimination by US and Internationally educated nurses

    PubMed

  4. Health situation of migrant and minority nurses: A systematic review

    PubMed Central

  5. Exploring discrimination and racism in healthcare: a qualitative study of the experiences of patients with a migrant background in the Netherlands

    BMJ Open

  6. Racism as a determinant of health: a systematic review and meta-analysis

    BMJ Open via PubMed Central

  7. Nurses’ discursive construction of older adult immigrant patients in Norway

    BMC Nursing / PubMed Central

  8. Voices of Black African Born Nurses & Students in the US

    PubMed

  9. Cultural Competence in Nursing Care for Migrants: A Scoping Review

    International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (via PubMed Central)

  10. ‘They make us feel like we’re a burden’: immigrant and refugee experiences of discrimination in hospital care

    Journal of Health Psychology (SAGE)

+ 27 more sources — see the full list on Lenz

Filed Under

Culturally Diverse PatientsForeign-Born PatientsNursesWestern Hospitals

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