Social justice advocate and law scholar Dorothy Roberts has a precise and powerful message: Race-based medicine is bad medicine. Even today, many doctors still use race as a medical shortcut; they make important decisions about things like pain tolerance based on a patient's skin color instead of medical observation and measurement. In this searing talk, Roberts lays out the lingering traces of race-based medicine -- and invites us to be a part of ending it. "It is more urgent than ever to finally abandon this backward legacy," she says, "and to affirm our common humanity by ending the social inequalities that truly divide us."

Dorothy Roberts: The problem with race-based medicine

The problem with race-based medicine

Professor, author and social justice advocate

Racial identity in medicine can skew results and medical care, as personal experience reveals it is treated unscientifically.

Modern medicine still uses race-based measurements, affecting diagnoses and treatments, despite evidence of human genetic unity.

The practice of race-based medicine overlooks social determinants of health, perpetuating health disparities and biases.

Why do doctors practice race-based medicine?

Finding Good Pain Treatment Is Hard. If You’re Not White, It’s Even Harder.

social change

disease

health