4 ms·

If you're interested in the raw data behind these conclusions, it looks like the paper supplement [1] has some. One potentially meaningful point from Table S1A

If you're interested in the raw data behind these conclusions, it looks like the paper supplement [1] has some. One potentially meaningful point from Table S1A of the supplement: it looks like there are 360k white doctor-black patient observations and 97k black doctor-black patient observations, and the mean length of stay for white doctor-black patient observations is 4.73 days vs. 3.37 days for black doctor-black patient. If I understand these figures, that means that on average white doctors keep black patients 40% longer than black doctors keep black patients. I don't know what that means for the quality of care. Is keeping patients around good or bad? The Medicaid/Medicare/Self-pay numbers are very similar for the two groups, so it shouldn't be that the black patients going to white doctors are just paying for more care, right? Does it say something about case difficulty? I know very little about this topic. Hopefully somebody who knows more can chime in. But that gap seems...significant? [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2020/08/12/1913405117.DCSupplemental/pnas.1913405117.sapp.pdf https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/suppl/2020/08/12/191340511...

deleted 6y ago
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busythrowaway22 6y ago
If you have the time, take a look at the supporting information for Materials and Methods. This is interesting to me as well, but my understanding of the English language is not as good. Some key takeaways: -They use delivery data from different categories of births, including 'complications occurring during the course of labor and delivery'. Do they account for the conditions in which the babies were born, and then attribute that to the types of doctors handling those deliveries? In other words, do they make a distinction saying emergency white doctors perform worse than emergency black doctors? Because I cannot find that information in the research. -Since doctor race data isn't codified in Florida's database (where they use the data from), they used web pictures and determine if the doctor is white or black. They narrowed this task down to 4 people who were good at it. -Black female doctors performed the best, they mention some control of the gender but I do not fully understand how they did it. -They used a Latino doctor group as well to account for differences, but found that while there is a distinction, it is much smaller than Black-White. I also don't understand if/how they control for the quality of the hospital. Is there one bad low income hospital with white doctors in a predominantly black area?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

busythrowaway22 6y ago

If you have the time, take a look at the supporting information for Materials and Methods. This is interesting to me as well, but my understanding of the English language is not as good. Some key takeaways: -They use delivery data from different categories of births, including 'complications occurring during the course of labor and delivery'. Do they account for the conditions in which the babies were born, and then attribute that to the types of doctors handling those deliveries? In other words, do they make a distinction saying emergency white doctors perform worse than emergency black doctors? Because I cannot find that information in the research. -Since doctor race data isn't codified in Florida's database (where they use the data from), they used web pictures and determine if the doctor is white or black. They narrowed this task down to 4 people who were good at it. -Black female doctors performed the best, they mention some control of the gender but I do not fully understand how they did it. -They used a Latino doctor group as well to account for differences, but found that while there is a distinction, it is much smaller than Black-White. I also don't understand if/how they control for the quality of the hospital. Is there one bad low income hospital with white doctors in a predominantly black area?