A widely-cited study that claims black babies were more likely to die under white doctors’ care had a serious methodological problem — one that appears to explain the study’s troubling conclusion, according to a new report from the Manhattan Institute.
Manhattan Institute scholars George Borjas and Robert VerBruggen found that the authors of the influential 2020 study did not consider that white doctors were more likely to care for black babies with low birth weight, which dramatically increases the chance a baby will die. When controlling for low birth weight, the scholars found no significant difference in outcomes for newborns based on a doctor’s race.
Their findings call into question the legitimacy of the study, which has been cited to demonstrate supposed inherent racism among white doctors.
“This fact that Black newborns do so much better under the care of Black…
