Pregnant Black patients were drug tested more often than white patients before delivery, an analysis found.
analysis of patients in a large Pennsylvania health system from March 2018 to June 2021 found.
Black patients were no more likely to test positive for using substances while pregnant, but even those with no history of substance use were asked to get urine toxicology testing more often than other racial groups, the study of more than 37,000 patients found.Federal and some state laws require providers to report patients to child welfare agencies if their toxicology report reveals substance use.
But not applying the practices evenly across groups can amount to medical racism, said Marian Jarlenski, lead researcher and professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.Black patients without a history of substance abuse had a 6.9% mean probability of being drug tested at delivery compared to a 4.7% mean probability for white patients.
Among patients with substance use documented in the last year in their electronic health record, Black patients had a 76% mean probability of being drug tested compared to 68% of white patients. Among those patients with a history of substance abuse, the predicted probability of having a positive test result was higher among white pregnant patients than Black patients.
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