It’s a statistic so shocking, it almost seems hard to believe. But, according to a recent study led by researchers at George Mason University, it’s sadly true. Black babies are much more likely to die in the care of white doctors than they are in the care of Black doctors. (Just let that sink in for a minute.) As for how and why, though … well, that remains the subject of endless debate.
First, it's important to know the study's parameters
Researchers did analyze data collected over a large period of time to reach their conclusions and pulled from a sizable sampling. But it was not a nationwide study. According to CNN, scientists looked at 1.8 million hospital births between the years 1992 and 2015 — all of which occurred in the state of Florida.
Their findings were published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (or PNAS).
The results were startling
Overall, Black newborns were found to have a higher mortality rate than white babies — but the racial disparity that came when looking into the doctors who cared for them was nothing short of alarming.
When cared for by white doctors, Black newborns were three times more likely to die in the hospital than white newborns were. But for Black newborns who remained in the care of Black doctors, mortality rates dropped dramatically by 39%-58%.
The significance of this cannot be overstated
“Our study provides the first evidence that the Black-white newborn mortality gap is smaller when Black MDs provide care for Black newborns than when white MDs do, lending support to research examining the importance of racial concordance in addressing health care inequities,” wrote study coauthor Rachel Hardeman, Ph.D., MPH, on Twitter Monday. “So many now will ask why? The reasons are complex and many.”
They certainly are.
Racial disparities in infant mortality rates have long been an issue
“Black babies have been dying at disproportionate rates since as long as we’ve collected data,” tweeted Hardeman. “The time is now to change this and to ensure that Black infants are afforded the opportunity to thrive.”
She’s right.
In fact, we’ve known for some time that Black babies are more than 2.3 times as likely to die in a hospital in the US than white babies, but getting to the root cause of why has been challenging. As a result, it seems that little to nothing has been done about it.
The same can be said about Black mothers who die in childbirth
In fact, Black mothers are more than three times as likely to die giving birth than white mothers, studies have found. They’re also twice as likely to suffer from pregnancy complications.
Earlier this year, another study found that even Black mothers who give birth in the same hospital as white mothers have an increased risk of dying. This inevitably led to a flurry of questions, like whether other factors, such as income level, preexisting health conditions, or differences in healthcare coverage had something to do with it.
But even when adjusting for these factors, the disparity remains too great. Simply put, they still don’t fully explain the gap in death rates.
“Our results really point to the idea that we have to dig deeper into what is causing these racial and ethnic disparities,” study author Dr. Elizabeth Howell, an ob-gyn with The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City and director of the Blavatnik Family Women’s Health Research Institute, told HuffPost back in January.
From there, another question loomed: Does Black maternal morbidity have more to do with the level of care and attention mothers receive based on their race? Many say yes.
Six Black women who spoke to Vice for an investigative report said they have often felt as though their health concerns were ignored or overlooked by doctors, and that they’ve had to be their own advocates. (Serena Williams echoed this sentiment when she shared the story of her own birth trauma in 2018.
“Even when we get prenatal care, even when we are normal weight and not obese, even when we have no underlying medical conditions, we are still more likely to die in childbirth than our white counterparts,” Joia Crear-Perry, an ob-gyn and the president of the National Birth Equity Collaborative, recently told Vox. “When Black birthing people have worse outcomes,” she continued, “it’s because of racism.”
Just like the maternal death rate, infant mortality needs a closer look
“Taken with this work, it gives warrant for hospitals and other care organizations to invest in efforts to reduce such biases and explore their connection to institutional racism,” wrote the authors behind the GMU study.
It may not be easy, but it’s necessary work.
“Reducing racial disparities in newborn mortality will also require raising awareness among physicians, nurses, and hospital administrators about the prevalence of racial and ethnic disparities,” they added.
