A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has cast doubt on previous findings suggesting that black newborns fare better when cared for by black doctors. The new research, conducted by George J. Borjas and Robert VerBruggen, reexamined data from Florida hospitals spanning three decades.
The original 2020 study had reported that black infants were less likely to die when attended by black physicians, sparking discussions about racial concordance in healthcare. However, Borjas and VerBruggen’s analysis reveals that controlling for very low birth weight—a crucial factor in infant mortality—eliminates the previously observed racial concordance effect.
“Including separate controls for each type of very-low-birth-weight diagnosis boosts the R-squared even more (to nearly 40%) and still suggests no statistically significant concordance effect,” the researchers note. Their findings indicate that the apparent benefit of racial matching disappears when comparing newborns within the same weight class.
Importantly, the study found that black doctors disproportionately care for black newborns with healthy birth weights, while white doctors attend to a larger share of black babies with very low birth weights—those most at risk. This non-random distribution of patients may have contributed to the earlier study’s conclusions.
The researchers emphasize that their analysis suggests “the potential for improving neonatal outcomes for black infants lies more in reducing the incidence of newborns born with very low birth weights (and in improving care for those infants) than in the color of their doctors’ skin.”
While acknowledging the limitations of their study, Borjas and VerBruggen call for further research using different data sets and focusing on scenarios where physicians and patients are matched randomly. They stress the importance of scientific self-correction and transparency in methods and data to advance understanding in this critical area of healthcare disparities.
See: “Do Black Newborns Fare Better with Black Doctors? The Limits of Measuring Racial Concordance” (October 15, 2024)
