Black-born babies in the United States are more likely to die if they are in the care of white doctors, according to a new study.
Researchers from the University of Minnesota found that the chance of survival increases if black beekeepers are cared for by Black doctors.
The findings are based on data from 1.8 million hospital children in Florida between 1992 and 2015, the Duluth News Tribunereports. The records show that Black newborns with a white doctor had a higher mortality rate compared to newborns with a Black doctor.
The findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
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“We wanted to understand the relationship between physician race and patient outcomes,” said lead author of the study Aaron Sojourner, an associate professor of economics at the Carlson School of Management.
Systemic institutional racism within health care
“Our findings prove that if newborns and the physicians treating them are of the same race, that survival of newborns is significantly improved,” said co-author Rachel Hardeman. “This study is the first evidence to prove the effect of doctor-patient racial concordance on the gap in black-and-white mortality. While we try to close persistent racial gaps in birth outcomes, this finding is incredibly important. ”
Researchers found that systemic institutional racism in health care is most commonly perpetrated by non-Black medical professionals because they did not detect mortality risks for white babies born to Black doctors.
“The fact that Black newborns are doing so much better under the care of Black doctors guarantees greater research by researchers and medical practitioners into drivers of differences between doctors with higher and lower performance, and why black doctors are systematically better than colleagues at caring for Black newborns , ”Said Sojourner.
The study does not address how specifically Black newborns die at the hands of white doctors, but researchers claim that Black infant lives average for “an additional 1,400 deaths annually,” CNN reports.
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“We have known for a long time that there are big racial differences in newborn mortality,” Sojourner said. “I think it’s hopeful to find something that is associated with great reduction in that punishment … It suggests that Black doctors on average are doing a better job in caring for Black newborns, and that we should learn from that.”
The authors also noted that “The findings suggest that Black physicians are better than their white counterparts in caring for Black newborns.”
She added: “Reducing racial differences in newborn mortality will also require awareness among doctors, nurses and hospital administrators about the prevalence of racial and ethnic differences.”
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