Research in medicine has largely become a disgrace, driven by ideology and politics more than a search for meaningful data to guide clinical practice. What used to be prestigious medical journals are now just a joke for the research they publish. All you have to do is look at the titles. And here is a classic example, with some of the dumbest analysis you can imagine, and here is its title: “Association of Residence in High–Police Contact Neighborhoods With Preterm Birth Among Black and White Individuals in Minneapolis.” (JAMA Article)
Once more my current metro area of residence is determined to be far above average in lunacy. Must be something in those Mississippi River headwaters. Any person with a functioning brain, which leaves out much of this state, can immediately imagine what might be wrong with this study. What is going on in areas with high-police contact? Could it be a lot of crime? Could that high-crime environment cause stress? Maybe it is not enough police contacts that causes the problem, because there are not adequate resources to limit crime. And while it is terribly politically incorrect to observe this, it is absolutely true that these lower-income areas have high rates of poor health behaviors, including lower compliance with prenatal care guidelines.
These dipshit authors decided to ignore the role of socio-economic factors, except to say that if they were included they would have found no effect of level of police contacts. And please note an interesting little finding. The supposed effect on African-Americans was far lower among recently arrived immigrants. Why? Because they have stronger families and have not been subjected to the wonderful liberal and progressive policies that have fed irresponsibility and poor behaviors for decades. Anyone who actually cares about the plight of many African-Americans would want policies that build strong families and encourage personal responsibility, not excuse-making about systemic racism. But that is hard, and progressives are basically lazy and have no desire to actually take on difficult problems with solutions that work.
Don’t expect improvement in many of our most intractable problems until we boot the progressive mindset completely out of any role in government.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at 
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Amen Brother! I work in data analytics within the health care spectrum of services. Management and industry leaders are trying to figure out how to stop “systemic racism” in health care when they haven’t even completed analysis to prove it exists.
Pardon me if I don’t read the linked article, I trust your description. It is clearly a sociology study masquerading as a medical study. Some institution chased government grant money and gave the payer/customer what they wanted.
I have a relative that worked at Harvard Medical. She spent at least half her hours writing grant applications. Although she was salaried her department budget was based on how much grant money she was able to bring in. It took her several years before she found out there was a another department applying for the same grants! They send multiple pigs to the same trough to increase their chances of getting that taxpayer loot.
As always, thoroughly entertaining and spot on analysis. Thank you for your dedication to truth and wisdom!
When you grow up in today’s inner cities, there’s a very good chance that having hot showers, 3 meals a day, educational resources, medical resources, etc. is well worth taking your chances with a criminal lifestyle … especially with today’s liberal courts. It’s stunning that most of the distressed minorities in this country keep voting the white people, starting with FDR, who have led their oppression, back into office time and time again. I guess it’s just too scary to think that you have to get up every day and take responsibility for yourself under the alternative leadership choices.
It’s just a shame that Jessie Jackson wasn’t replaced by Thomas Sowell 50 years ago.