Seminar in Economics | with Minu Philip
Welcome to this seminar in economics organized by the Department of Economics, SSE. The seminar speaker is Minu Philip, New York University.
Abstract
Strokes are roughly twice more likely to be missed among Black patients, with most of the disparity arising from physicians testing Black patients less often. We develop a method to quantify the role of disparate treatment by physicians in driving this difference in testing. Specifically, we leverage a unique feature of strokes: whether a patient actually had a stroke can be inferred retrospectively even if initially misdiagnosed. This allows us to benchmark testing decisions against racially objective predictions of stroke risk made by a machine learning model trained on the true underlying stroke states. We decompose disparate treatment into two forces: an unjustified skill gap, where physicians make noisier risk assessments for Black patients; and racial prejudice, where physicians are less likely to test Black patients conditional on their risk assessment. Disparate treatment accounts for about 65% of the racial disparity in testing. Removing racial prejudice would lower testing disparities by half.
More about the speaker
The seminar takes place at the Stockholm School of Economics, Bertil Ohlins gata 4.
Please contact Malin Skanelid if you have any questions.
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