New Research Debunks Key Study Used to Support Discriminatory Med School Admissions

One of the most influential studies used to support the notion that racial concordance – in which patients are treated by physicians of the same race – produces positive health outcomes has been debunked, according to new research published Monday. When the proper controls are applied, the study’s findings basically disappear.

Proponents of DEI and race-conscious admissions in medical schools have frequently cited the 2020 study, “Physician–patient racial concordance and disparities in birthing mortality for newborns,” to argue that medical schools should prioritize race in admissions in order to increase diversity among physicians and thereby improve care for minority patients.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson even cited an amicus brief referring to the study’s findings in her dissent in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

However, it turns out that the study had serious methodological flaws.

The 2020 study examined Florida infant mortality data and purported to show that the elevated infant mortality rate among black babies was partially reduced when black babies had black doctors rather than white doctors.

But a commentary published Monday, in the same journal, examined the same data and found that, when controlling for low birth weights, the racial concordance effect becomes statistically insignificant. 

This completely debunks the central finding of the 2020 study. 

Do No Harm previously highlighted the fact that the 2020 study failed to adequately control for the severity of comorbidities, like low birth weight, in our report examining the evidence, or lack thereof, supporting the racial concordance effect in medicine. The 2024 research confirms our suspicions that the purported effect would become insignificant once researchers controlled for low birth weight.

The 2024 commentary, “Physician–patient racial concordance and newborn mortality,” found that “the estimated effect is near zero and statistically insignificant in the expanded specifications that control for very low birth weight and include hospital and physician fixed effects.”

This research is just the latest piece of evidence undercutting the academic foundation of DEI and racial discrimination in the country’s medical institutions. Much of this research is too often a pretext for politically motivated academics to smuggle their beliefs into the public discourse through shoddy work. 

As it so happens, one of the co-authors of the 2020 study is a fan of Cuba’s health system which she characterized as a “more responsive, humanistic model of health care.”

But ultimately, the facts are on our side.

Do No Harm’s report on racial concordance highlighted the fact that four out of five systematic reviews found no evidence to support the claim that racial concordance produces positive health outcomes.

Moreover, Do No Harm has extensively chronicled the serious flaws in the body of research most often cited by DEI proponents; last week, we released a guide picking apart the methodologies of these studies.

As we apply proper scrutiny to pro-DEI research, the findings almost invariably tend to vanish.