This is Part 1 of Embedded Bias, a series revealing how race-based clinical algorithms pervade medicine and why it's so difficult to change them. P ediatrician Alexandra Epee-Bounya had had enough.

Usha Lee McFarling, a veteran science reporter, has written for STAT since 2015 and covers health disparities. You can reach Usha on Signal at usha.22. Katie Palmer covers telehealth, clinical ...

More information: Katherine E. Goodman et al, FAIRS — A Framework for Evaluating the Inclusion of Sex in Clinical Algorithms, New England Journal of Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMms2411331 ...

To evaluate the impact of race on clinical algorithms for colorectal cancer, the researchers predicted the future risk of cancer for 77,836 racially and economically diverse participants in the ...

“It’s also no question that some of these clinical algorithms that are race-based have been harmful.” Some researchers propose that increasing diversity in the fields that create these ...

The regional coalition, which convenes under Independence Blue Cross, has so far removed race from clinical algorithms used in kidney function assessment, lung function testing, a calculator that ...

Thirteen health systems in Greater Philadelphia are working as a coalition to reevaluate what role race has played in tools and guidelines that doctors and nurses use ...

In fact, none of the three clinical algorithms they point to involving measuring kidney function, lung function, or which children may have a urinary tract infection (UTI) are race-based. All of them ...

Jazmin Evans was diagnosed with kidney disease at the age of 17 in 2012. She received a kidney transplant in July 2023, after being on the transplant wait list for four years. Today, a year and a ...

More information: Anna Zink et al, Race adjustments in clinical algorithms can help correct for racial disparities in data quality, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10. ...