A decade of studying implicit racial/ethnic bias in healthcare providers using the implicit association test
Introduction Existing research indicates that Black, Indigenous, and people of color have worse health outcomes than white people, including incidence, prevalence, severity of disease at diagnosis, rates of mortality, and lower quality of care, despite efforts to close these gaps. The health disparity gap begins at birth and persists throughout one’s life course. Though these…
Read MoreDissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations
Introduction Obermeyer et al. note both the growing attention to potential racial and gender biases within algorithms and the difficulty of obtaining access to real world algorithms – including the raw data used to design and train them – in order to understand how and why bias could appear in them. This study is important…
Read MoreHealth Disparities due to Diminished Return among Black Americans: Public Policy Solutions
Introduction There is a large, consistent, and persistent gap in many different indicators of health status, across the lifespan, between Black and white populations. The author attempts to break this problem down to its root cause: first, the author notes that while it may be possible that there could be biological or genetic differences between…
Read MoreAssessing risk, automating racism
Introduction This article addresses the growing public concern regarding the automation of racial discrimination through digital tools and technology. Throughout the paper, the author, Dr. Ruha Benjamin, focuses her discussion on a notable publication by Obermeyer et al. entitled, “Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations.” Unlike most researchers who…
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