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. 2020 Sep 1;117(35):21194-21200.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1913405117. Epub 2020 Aug 17.

Physician-patient racial concordance and disparities in birthing mortality for newborns

Brad N Greenwood  1 , Rachel R Hardeman  2 , Laura Huang  3 , Aaron Sojourner  4
Affiliations

Physician-patient racial concordance and disparities in birthing mortality for newborns

Brad N Greenwood et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

Recent work has emphasized the benefits of patient-physician concordance on clinical care outcomes for underrepresented minorities, arguing it can ameliorate outgroup biases, boost communication, and increase trust. We explore concordance in a setting where racial disparities are particularly severe: childbirth. In the United States, Black newborns die at three times the rate of White newborns. Results examining 1.8 million hospital births in the state of Florida between 1992 and 2015 suggest that newborn-physician racial concordance is associated with a significant improvement in mortality for Black infants. Results further suggest that these benefits manifest during more challenging births and in hospitals that deliver more Black babies. We find no significant improvement in maternal mortality when birthing mothers share race with their physician.

Keywords: birthing outcomes; concordance; health care; mortality; racial bias.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Effect of racial concordance on patient survival, disaggregated based on column 4 of Table 1. Patient White–Physician White serves as the baseline. Estimates displayed in the absence of the physician fixed effect to allow comparison across physician race. Includes controls, hospital fixed effect, and time fixed effects. The 95% CI is displayed.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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