Algorithms, Race, and Racism: Historical Perspectives

​This week (September 10, 2022) yet another article in the NEJM reported on race correction. This time it was x-ray technology that corrected for race. Beginning with activism around race correction of eGFR and numerous subsequent reports, a particularly thoughtful one being an article in Boston Review by Amy Moran Thomas on pulse oximetry, this NEJM report builds on a burgeoning literature on race correction in nearly every specialty in medicine. But, given the varied histories of race and racism in medicine, does each instance of race correction have the same meaning in each specialty? For example, race correction of pulmonary function tests emerged from the Enlightenment ideas of Thomas Jefferson in the late 18th century, only to be codified more than a century later as a “scaling factor” in 1974, whereas codification of a scaling factor for kidney function (estimated glomerular function rate -eGFR) only occurred in 1999. This talk will explore race correction of algorithms in light of varied societal concerns at different historical moments.