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“men who score high on depression scales are less likely to be diagnosed as depressive than women with similarly high scores”

-Shows bias on the basis of sex and how healthcare workers react to different genders having the same mental illness

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Bias in medical research disallows for an environment in which objective, productive discussion is promoted. It wastes the time and money which otherwise could be spent towards bettering our physical or mental conditions. For instance "Before depression was described and established as a diagnosis in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III, psychiatrists assumed that women were more often depressed than men." As a result of bias, an unproductive environment is created which leads to mental illnesses not being thoroughly looked into, which leads to less treatments for said illness. This is only one instance of how bias prevents us from bettering our medical care as a whole.

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claim #3

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“Laura Bogart, Ph.D., a social psychologist and senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation whose research has documented the effects of medical mistrust on HIV prevention and treatment outcomes, defines medical mistrust as an absence of trust that health care providers and organizations genuinely care for patients’ interests, are honest, practice confidentiality, and have the competence to produce the best possible results.”

Purpose:
This evidence provides a very vital statistic, that less than half of Black Americans trusted the COVID-19 vaccine. It also talks about the stigmatization/ misconception of minority biology.

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African Americans experience a high susceptibility to many diseases and disorders in general. "Black and Hispanic Americans have higher rates of chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, and lower rates of cancer screenings”(). Ethnic minorities are at disproportionate risk of facing adverse health effects. As a result of long-term racism in history and possible racist policies, minorities live in lower income areas and experience higher rates of violence or exposure to safety issues.

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These biases cause a distrust between minorities and the health care system. For instance "30% to 50% of minorities distrust the COVID-19 vaccine and aren’t considering vaccination"(). The history of research bias/ abuse stretches as far back as Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells which is a popular case which has left deep-rooted doubts and distrust in the minds of many regarding the safety/ benefit of research. A more recent event would be the stigma around the COVID-19 vaccine where "Just 42 percent of Black Americans said in November they’d be willing to take a COVID-19 vaccine"(). This trend of bias in healthcare providers starts all the way from when they start medical school. According to a study conducted “half of medical students and residents held one or more false beliefs about supposed biological differences between Black and white patients, like the former have higher pain tolerance than the latter”().

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NATIVE AMERICANS EXPERIENCE HIGHEST MORTALITY RATE FROM COVID

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NATIVE AMERICANS EXPERIENCE HIGHEST MORTALITY RATE FROM COVID

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There is a potential for bias in Covid medical research affecting minorities because of the lack of diversity in the medical field. Studies have shown that minorities are underrepresented in medical research, which can lead to a lack of understanding of how Covid may affect them. It is statistically proven that "SMRs for Native Americans are 2.8 times as high as among Whites"(). This lack of understanding can lead to disparities in care. “The overall set of factors associated with high COVID-19 deaths are largely the same as those that have been identified to increase vulnerability of Native Americans to a host of diseases through generations,”(). Native Americans have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic due to a long history of systemic racism and bias in medical research. Native Americans are more likely to suffer from underlying health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, which can increase their risk of severe illness from covid.The high mortality rates of Native Americans is reflective of the lack of care or consideration the general American public has had for Native American health.

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“AIAN, Hispanic, NHOPI, and Black people are about twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as their White counterparts”(). This can be correlated to the harsh working, living, and transportation conditions that minorities typically are situated with.

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claim #2

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"Black men have a 76% higher incidence rate and 120% higher death rate from prostate cancer compared with White men"

How it could be used:
This quote also shows how as a result of underrepresentation in medical research, there is less medical attention towards minorities such as African American which leads them to be at higher risk of dying from cancers and diseases.

"More than 96% of participants enrolled in these studies are White."

How it could be used:
This quote also shows underrepresentation because it talks about how 96% of participants in clinical trials are white which shows us that minorities aren't getting represented for there specific diseases they are suffering from and don't get the most effective medical treatment.

"They [blacks and latinos] are underrepresented in our pivotal diabetic macular edema trials with less than 12% of participants being Black."

How it could be used:
This quote gives a specific area where they are being underrepresented and states how there are less blacks in the clinical trials for a disease that many people including minorities might have.

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Whether it be nature (genetic) or nurture (high poverty rates, thus bad environments or health practices), minorities, particularly African Americans, experience higher mortality and susceptibility rates to certain diseases or disorders. For instance "Black women have a 41% higher mortality rate from breast cancer compared with White women"(). This being the case, they are severely underrepresented in clinical trials (A type of research study that tests how well new medical approaches work in people)/ research. "They [black women] represent only 5% of clinical trial participants” (). The division caused by bias in medical research (on the lines of race and gender), and this can possibly lead to adverse health effects such as distrust in the healthcare system if they are not provided the adequate care/ attention deserved.

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Underrepresentation of minorities in medical research

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Underrepresentation of minorities in medical research

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claim #1

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Quotes: “The custom of performing clinical trials on populations consisting exclusively or mainly of young or middle-aged white men, and generalizing the results to whole populations has been criticized since the 1970s as a way of producing biased knowledge.”

“In addition, patients who abused drugs and alcohol, the majority of them being men, were regularly excluded from the studies”

What to discuss:
Discuss how as a result of gender bias, white males are more likely to be selected for clinical trials which leads to a biased result. An example of gender bias is in studies revolving around depression where more women were studied than men. As a result of this skewed participation pool, the statistic found was that more women are depressed than men.

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A large number, or possibly majority, of medical research that is published are unproductive. This is caused by the presence of false positives and positives, which is defined as when research results indicate the absence or presence of a condition when that is not the case. This can happen when an investigator uses data ineffectively, fail to notice statistically significant relationships, or there may be conflicts of interest that tend to bury significant findings. This example contributes to false positives/ negatives that are present in research regarding minorities. For example, there have been false beliefs or stereotypes that minorities contain certain attributes that they don’t, like Black Americans with higher pain tolerance. This bias also causes a lack of productivity because these types of errors (false positives and negatives), which could result from a bias in the research (for example, there is a circular nature to the belief that women have higher rates of depression.

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As a result of poor design and conducting of the medical research, around 85% of medical research is a waste and not useful. If you calculated this amount globally you will find that 100-200 million dollars per year is wasted. This huge sum of money wasted is spent on inappropriate designs, unrepresentative samples, small samples. This results in "73% of research conclusions not justified”().

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From an ethical lens, bias in medical research negatively affects the U.S population to a high extent. The underrepresentation in clinical trials stemming from bias adversely impacting the wellbeing of minorities while perpetuating a distrust of minorities in the healthcare system, and bias in medical research as a whole prohibits medical research from optimizing its productivity or benefit to society.