Research published late this summer suggests that “newborn–physician racial concordance is associated with a significant improvement in mortality for Black infants,” i.e., when they received care from Black physicians.

Lead author Brad N. Greenwood, PhD, an associate professor at George Mason University School of Business, took time to answer questions about this research.

Did you determine why Black babies have a better chance of survival?

Greenwood: I want to emphasize how cautious we need to be about speculating about the “why” question because it is speculative. This is secondary data so nailing down the exact mechanism is difficult, even if we do see the effect get larger in some places — hospitals that deliver more Black newborns — and smaller in others — Black newborns without comorbidities. But there are several possible explanations:

• We want to be careful not to pathologize Black newborns, but there is evidence that Black newborns