A historic study which claimed Black newborns were more likely to die in the hands of White doctors has been debunked.
The famous study from August 2020 claimed Black newborns had lower mortality rates when looked after by Black physicians. However, a new study has since counteracted these claims, which were widely reported by a number of mainstream media outlets, and even cited by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in 2023.
The original study omitted low weight births from the data, thus skewing it.
Birth weights under 1500g are more common in Black newborns (3.3%) than White (1.2%), subsequently leading to a higher mortality rate than first accounted for.
With the new consideration, the statistical differences became insignificant, and confirmed that birth weight is more influential in a baby’s survival than the skin color of the physician.
The new study also uncovered that White doctors were more likely to care for Black low-weight newborns than Black physicians, further disproving the original findings.
As such, the original research incorrectly skewed the data and claimed that “racial concordance” between newborns and doctors contributed to a higher mortality rate.
Effectively, the new study disproved the link between a doctor’s and a baby’s race, instead attributing lower birth weights to higher likelihood of mortality.
