Study: Black babies are less likely to die when cared for by a Black doctor
Why do Black newborns have a relatively high mortality rate in the U.S. — and how does the race of the doctor factor in?
20 August, 2020
Credit: pxhere / public domain
- A new study examined nearly 2 million births in Florida from 1992 to 2015.
- The results showed that, when cared more by a white doctor, Black newborns are 3 times more likely to die than white newborns.
- The researchers said several "disturbing" factors are likely at play.
<p>The U.S. infant mortality rate has overall been dropping for decades, but there remain significant racial disparities. Black newborns are about 2.3 times more likely to die than white newborns, according to the <a href="https://minorityhealth.hhs.gov/omh/browse.aspx?lvl=4&lvlid=23" target="_blank">U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Minority Health</a>. Still, the precise causes have been unclear.</p><p>A new study offers insight into one little-understood factor: the race of the physician. The results showed that when the physician is white, Black newborns are three more times likely to die than white newborns. But when the physician is Black, that rate drops by roughly half.</p>
Potential causes
<p>Why might the race of the attending physician matter? Although the researchers didn't examine the root causes of the disparity, they did mention that factors like eclampsia and preeclampsia (dangerous conditions that afflict Black women at disproportionate rates), socioeconomic inequality, racial biases, and institutional racism may play a part.</p><p>Brad Greenwood, study co-author and an associate professor of Information Systems & Operations Management Sciences at George Mason University, told <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/08/19/black-babies-more-likely-live-when-treated-black-doctors-study/3389521001/" target="_blank">USA Today</a> that a mix of "disturbing" structural influences could be contributing to the problem.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I don't think any of us would suggest as co-authors that these results are manifesting as a result of malicious bias on the part of physicians," Greenwood said. "I also think that underscores how insidious something like this is. Children are dying as a result of just structural problems."</p><div id="2ab39" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a5bf83bac0d632ff05f7d88e1c3022ee"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1223033387012804610" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The infant mortality rate in the US declined 2.3% from 579.3 infant deaths/100,000 live births in 2017 to 566.2 in… https://t.co/N1JdWTuejI</div> — NCHS (@NCHS)<a href="https://twitter.com/NCHStats/statuses/1223033387012804610">1580428856.0</a></blockquote></div><p>One part of the problem, potentially, is that only 5 percent of doctors in the U.S. are Black, even though Black Americans represent 13 percent of the population. Still, representation is only one part of this complex issue, according to study co-author Rachel Hardeman, a reproductive health equity researcher and associate professor at the University of Minnesota.</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"It could go a long ways to helping with this, but also we don't know that the answer is necessarily that we just need more Black doctors," she told USA Today. "We have to be thinking about the health care institutions themselves and how physicians are being trained ... to think about the role of race and racism in the clinical encounter but also in people's lives outside of health care settings."</p>
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