BIAS IN THE BABY WARD –

April 14, 2023 – Hospitals are more likely to give drug tests to Black women delivering babies than white women, regardless of the mother’s history of substance use, suggests a new study of a health system in Pennsylvania.

And such excessive testing was unwarranted, the study found: Black women were less likely than white women to test positive for drugs.

The study analyzed the electronic medical records of 37,860 patients who delivered a baby at a large health care system in Pennsylvania between March 2018 and June 2021. It was published on Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum.

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