Race correction in medicine is the use of a patient’s race in a scientific equation that can influence how they are treated. Race correction in medicine has pitted medical students against their teachers, attracted the attention of Congress and led to a big lawsuit against the NFL.
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Jacque Smith and Cassie Spodak, CNN, April 27, 2021
When she first learned about race correction, Naomi Nkinsi was one of five Black medical students in her class at the University of Washington.
Nkinsi remembers the professor talking about an equation doctors use to measure kidney function. The professor said eGFR equations adjust for several variables, including the patient’s age, sex and race. When it comes to race, doctors have only two options: Black or “Other.”
Nkinsi was dumbfounded.
“It was really shocking to me,” says Nkinsi, now a third-year medical and masters of public health student, “to come into school and see that not only is there interpersonal racism between patients and physicians … there’s actually racism built into the very algorithms that we use.”
Is Race Correction in Medicine Hurting Your Patients?
Doctors and providers use medical algorithms and equations when assessing a patient’s risk of illness or disease and recommending treatment. However, many of these programs use race as part of the analytics process. In fact, they may alter their recommendations or findings once the patient’s race is added into the system, a trend known as race correction.
But critics say these “corrections” tend to be misleading – if not dangerous – to patients of color.
What Is Race Correction?
Race correction is defined as the use of a patient’s race in a scientific equation that then influences how they are treated. That means some diagnostic algorithms and risk predictor tools will essentially adjust or “correct” their results based on the person’s race.
Can a formula be racist? She says one put her health at risk 08:03
The argument over race correction has raised questions about the scientific data doctors rely on to treat people of color. It s attracted the attention of Congress and led to a big lawsuit against the NFL.
What happens next could affect how millions of Americans are treated.
Medicine has never been immune to racism
Carolyn Roberts, a historian of medicine and science at Yale University, says slavery and the American medical system were in a codependent relationship for much of the 19th century and well into the 20th.