New Algorithms Could Reduce Racial Disparities in Health Care
Machine learning programs trained with patients’ own reports find problems that doctors miss—especially in Black people. Full study here: https://go.nature.com/3pnOwWP
History is key to understanding vaccine hesitancy in people of colour - £paywall
Distrust has its roots in ‘scientific’ experiments that aimed to prove racial superiority. As the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine continues across the UK, with more than 14m already having had the jab, in communities of colour there remains deep concern over its safety. Polls show that people of colour are around 20 per cent less likely to have a vaccination than the population as a whole.
'Machine learning is revolutionising healthcare provision and delivery, from mobilising previously inaccessible data sources to generating increasingly powerful algorithmic constructs for prognostic modelling. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that if we do not learn from the mistakes of our past, that we are doomed to repeat them; if it isn’t already too late'
Hidden in Plain Sight — Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms | NEJM
"By embedding race into the basic data and decisions of health care, these algorithms propagate race-based medicine. Many of these race-adjusted algorithms guide decisions in ways that may direct more attention or resources to white patients than to members of racial and ethnic minorities"
NHS England criticised over missing ethnicity data for covid-19 jabs
NHS England is facing growing criticism from public health leaders over its failure to publish data on the ethnicity of people who have been vaccinated against covid-19
Why historic injustices are causing vaccine hesitancy among ethnic minorities
Concerns about the low take up of vaccines by black & Asian community. Calls for data on ethnicity to be collected as part of vaccine uptake data collection
The current covid-19 pandemic has shined the spotlight on longstanding health inequities for people of color. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared to the general United States population, African Americans are 1.4 times more likely to contract the coronavirus, and 2.8 times more likely to die from covid-19.