What You Should Know:
- Doris Duke Foundation (DDF) announce the launch of Racial Equity in Clinical Equations, a new initiative to examine the misuse of race in medical research.
- The foundation will provide $10M in new grants that will document the impact on patients of existing algorithms with potential race misuse, provide vital data to inform new guidelines, and ultimately enable the medical research community to identify a framework to reconsider and potentially revise the mathematical models that underlie patient care.
Tackling Racial Bias in Clinical Equations
Attention to the potentially dangerous results of race misuse in clinical equations is growing, as physicians, policymakers, and patient advocates have begun to scrutinize formulas used to inform evaluations such as the diagnosis of kidney disease and transplant allocation, pediatric care including urinary tract infections in toddlers, and the ability to have a vaginal birth after C-section.
The work is urgent. Race may or may not be a relevant factor in individual formulas that inform medical decision-making, but a failure to consider the downstream impact of choosing – or excluding — race as an element in clinical equations can have disastrous results, potentially leading to the over, under, or misdiagnosis of disease, delayed treatment, and negative outcomes in patients of color.Racial Equity in Clinical Equations addresses this concern. The initiative begins with a landmark summit of powerful stakeholders across science, medicine, and policy, on June 27, presented in partnership with The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Council of Medical Specialty Societies and the National Academy of Medicine.
