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Saturday, April 06, 2002Martha N. Hill, Ph.D., Co-Vice Chair: Interim Dean, Professor, and Director, Center for Nursing Research, at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Her research interests are hypertension and diabetes care and control in urban African American communities. “Her most recent work includes research on barriers to hypertension care and control, and dispelling myths about urban Black men and hypertension.” Joseph R. Betancourt, M.D., MP.H., Senior Scientist, Institute for Health Policy and Director for Multicultural Education, Multicultural Affairs Office at Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Medical School. His “primary interests include cross-cultural medicine, minority recruitment into the health professions, and minority health/health policy research. ..and exploring root causes for racial/ethnic disparities in health” M. Gregg Bloche, M.D., J.D., Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Georgetwon-Johns Hopkins Joint Program in Law and Public Health. “His recent and current scholarship addresses efficiency and fairness issues, the interplay between medical markets and the law, patients’ rights, and socio-economic and racial disparities in medical care.” W. Michael Byrd, M.D., M.P.H., Senior Research Scientist and Instructor in the Divison of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Instructor in the Division of Public Health Practice at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Instructor and Staff Physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. “His work focuses on health policies that impact African American populations and other disadvantaged minorities. He also has expertise in the medical and public health history of African Americans.” John F. Dovidio, M.A., Ph.D., Charles A. Dana Professor, Department of Psychology and Interim Provost and Dean of the Faculty at Colgate University. His research interests are “in stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination; social power and nonverbal communication; and altruism and helping...[He] shared the 1985 and 1998 Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize with Samuel L. Gaertner for their work on aversive racism and ways to reduce bias.” Jose J. Escarce, M.D., Ph.D., , Senior Natural Scientist at RAND, and co-director of the Center for Research on Health Care Organization, Economics and Finance. He has “studied racial differences in the utilization of surgical procedures and diagnostic tests by elderly Medicare beneficiaries, and was lead investigator of a study of racial differences in medical care utilization among older persons...He was co-investigator of study that..[assessed] the impact of patient race and gender on physician decision making for patients with chest pain...[and] is currently working on several projects that address sociodemographic barriers to access in managed care.” David R. Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H., Professor of Sociology and Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.He is “interested in social and psychological factors that affect health and especially in the trends and the determinants of socioeconomic and racial differences in mental and physical health.” Brian D. Smedley, Ph.D., Senior Program Officer in the Divison of Health Sciences Policy of the Institute of Medicine: He was Study Director for the Institute of Medicine report "The Unequal Burden of Cancer: An Assessment of NIH Research and Programs for Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved." He adds the following tidbit to his biographical information: “On a personal note, Dr. Smedley would like to acknowledge his godfather, Dr. Charles H. Wright of Detroit, Michigan. Dr. Wright was an obstetrician whose tireless efforts to increase awareness of the rich history of African peoples and their descendents in America and throughout the world...” Adrienne Y. Stith, Ph.D., Program Officer in the Division of Health Sciences Policy of the Institute of Medicine. She “worked in the areas of ethnic health disparities, mental health services for children in schools, and racial profiling.” These committee members seem to have an overwhelming interest in racial discrimination, don’t they? Even if they didn’t bring to the table their own ideological biases, which is hard to believe, many of them have ongoing research projects that involve exploring the impact of race on medical care. This in itself is reason to suspect them of bias, since their research grants depend on keeping the public interest focused on racism as an issue. Most amazingly, the report itself admits to its biases. In describing the committee's review of the literature, it says, on p. 492, (italics, again, are mine), that “..a finding of no racial or ethnic differences in patient outcomes (e.g. survival) despite disparate rates of treatment should not be interpreted as demonstrating that disparities in the use of medical intervention are inconsequential. In such instances, researchers should ask whether equivalent rates of intervention might be associated with better patient outcomes among minorities.” In other words, they should assume that things could be better than they are. Furthermore, they described the thirteen studies they reviewed in this way: “Two found no evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in care after adjustment for racial and ethnic differences in insurance status, comorbid factors, disease severity, and other potential confounds...Almost all studies found that adjustment for one or more confounding factors reduced the magnitude of unadjusted racial and ethnic differences in care. Among the five studies that collected data prospectively, however, all found racial and ethnic disparities remained” In other words, we’re going to ignore the studies that disagreed with our preconceived notions, even though they outnumber the ones that back us up. This isn’t science, it’s fraud. It belies the mission statement of the Institute of Medicine, which is “to provide objective, timely, authoritative information and advice concerning health and science policy,” and sullies the reputation of the National Academy of Sciences to which the Institute belongs. The shame of it is that no one will have the courage to speak out against the report for fear of being labeled a racist. You can read the whole report and draw your own conclusions here. posted by Sydney on 4/06/2002 02:23:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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