[1] It is commonly used in medical algorithms in several specialties, including cardiology, nephrology, urology, obstetrics, endocrinology, oncology and respiratory medicine.
[1][5] Adjustments for race are commonly used in several medical specialties, including cardiology, nephrology, urology, obstetrics, endocrinology, oncology and respiratory medicine.
In recent years, some professionals have called attention to these disparities, advocating to replace "the vagaries associated with inclusion of a variable termed 'race'.
[14] Medical decision making formulas such as the Vaginal Birth after Cesarean (VBAC) algorithm have been found to contribute to such disparities for women of color.
[17] These race/ethnicity associations have been challenged by health providers since they have not been thoroughly supported by biology and are concerning as black women have higher rates of maternal mortality.
[20] Recent interest in investigating the basis for why these correction factors came to be spawned a systematic review of 226 articles published between 1922 and 2008 that found that less than one in five studies defined race and that researchers frequently assumed inherent or genetic differences.
[28] Medical treatment of Black persons in the United States came into specific focus after 1808, after a federal ban on slave imports was implemented.
Sims, for instance, the father of modern gynecology, performed surgery on twelve women in the 1840s from his backyard in Montgomery, Alabama.
[31] As modern medical science grew, it developed in conjunction with notions of racism, derived from both experiments and societal sentiments.
[32] This thought process of viewing Black bodies and persons, alive or dead, as an "other", ripe for experimentation, persisted well into the Jim Crow era.
While certain experiments and explicitly eugenicist thought continued, many of the theories surrounding racial difference and eugenic superiority were discredited and pushed out of the mainstream.
[38] As understanding of race and ethnicity has evolved, advocates for change, such as Lundy Braun, have questioned the assumptions that some medical decision-making tools and formulas are based upon.
[39] However, Neil R. Powe, professor of medicine and researcher in health disparities and co-author on a study of the implications of omitting the race adjustment in eGFR calculations, highlights the risks in leaving it out.
[38] In May 2020, through medical student advocacy to their administration, the University of Washington transitioned to a new eGFR calculation that excludes race as a variable.