Black newborn babies 3 times more likely to die when treated by white doctors, study says

(CNN/WVLT) - A new study says newborn black babies are more likely to survive childbirth if taken care of by Black doctors. However, they’re three times more likely to die when looked after by white doctors.

CNN reported that researchers analyzed data from 1.8 million hospital births in Florida between 1992 and 2015 for the study, which was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, also known as PNAS.

"Strikingly, these effects appear to manifest more strongly in more complicated cases, and when hospitals deliver more Black newborns," the authors wrote. "The findings suggest that Black physicians outperform their White colleagues when caring for Black newborns."

CNN reported that the study did not speculate as to the reasons behind the data, but wrote: ”Taken with this work, it gives warrant for hospitals and other care organizations to invest in efforts to reduce such biases and explore their connection to institutional racism.”

The full study can be found here.