A new analysis has cast doubt on a widely-cited 2020 study that claimed Black infants were half as likely to survive their first year when cared for by white doctors compared to Black doctors. The original research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, sparked discussions about the urgent need to diversify the medical workforce in the United States.
However, a recent reexamination of the data, published in the same journal, suggests that the survival difference observed in the initial study was primarily due to very low birth weight infants, rather than the race of the attending physician. The new analysis found that when accounting for babies weighing less than 3.3 pounds, the effect of physician race on infant mortality became statistically insignificant.
Robert VerBruggen, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and co-author of the new study, explained that very low birth weight babies are both more likely to be Black and to be cared for by white doctors, particularly in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). With only 3.8% of neonatologists being Black, the sickest infants are often treated by predominantly white medical teams.
Ben Greenwood, lead author of the original study, welcomed the new analysis and emphasized the importance of continued research on this complex issue. He cautioned against using the findings to make broad conclusions about physician racism or to guide individual doctor selection.
The conflicting results highlight the need for further investigation into the factors contributing to the persistent racial gap in infant mortality. Black infants remain twice as likely to die in their first year compared to white infants, a disparity that has not significantly changed in decades.
As the debate continues, researchers stress the importance of including factors such as very low birth weight and hospital-specific effects in future studies on infant mortality. Understanding these nuances is crucial for developing effective strategies to address health disparities and improve outcomes for all infants.
