racial health inequities
The closest hospital vs. the one people actually deliver at
American Indian and Black birthing people deliver their babies at lower-quality hospitals than white people, a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open found. There was no significant difference in hospital quality between Asian and Hispanic people and white people. The researchers determined that if Black people gave birth at the closest hospital, the disparity in care received would disappear.
The findings are based on a cohort study of more than six million people who gave birth at 549 hospitals in five states (Mich., Ore., S.C., Pa., and Calif.) between 2008 and 2020. Overall, Black people lived closer to lower-quality hospitals than white people. But they also lived closer to a better hospital than the one they actually delivered at, the study found. The factors that lead someone to pick one hospital over another are not well-understood, the authors write, but insurance coverage and residential segregation likely play a part. Importantly, they noted that Black people giving birth at their nearest hospital is not "a comprehensive solution to reducing disparities." More work on maternal mortality disparities is needed.
human nature
If I like you, I'll comfort you
If not? Well … we'll see. When providing feedback to others, people are more likely to choose information that might make the other person feel good about themselves — unless they dislike them. That's according to a study published last week in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in which more than 3,100 people were tasked over seven similar experiments with providing feedback to an unseen partner on their results from personality and intelligence tests.
I won't get into the nitty-gritty details of each experiment here. But essentially, participants were asked to pick an article out of a varied selection to be given to their partner. Some articles emphasized the validity of the test taken, while others undermined the test. Participants repeatedly provided articles to their partners that would enhance the partner's self-image (i.e. if the partner performed badly, providing an article that says the test is unreliable).
That tendency to help enhance the other person's self-image disappeared when participants thought their partner showed "reproachable" characteristics. But even then, the participants were never providing negative feedback more often than they were providing positive feedback.
It's the first study to systematically investigate how a person may or may not choose to build up another person that they are unlikely to interact with in real life, the authors write. And maybe this is a bit cerebral for a Monday morning newsletter, but they also wrote that the findings show that people follow different principles when selecting information to tell other people, as opposed to what we tell ourselves. (May this be the reminder you need to be kind to yourself today.)
first opinion
A new crisis for early career researchers
When Covid-19 began sweeping across the country, young and early career scientists were hit the hardest by the challenges faced by the field as a whole. With in-person conferences cancelled, labs closed, social distancing policies in place, and some staff redeployed to work on the frontlines of clinical care, it's no wonder this group reported career struggles, worse productivity, and poorer mental health in those early years.
Five years later, there's a new disruption roiling academic research, but it's the same people who are most at risk after a slew of federal actions, three physicians and professors write in a new First Opinion essay. The freeze in study section meetings, proposed cut to indirect costs, and the termination of grants with "prohibited terms" are threatening the careers of researchers, Ph.D. students, post-docs, and prospective students.
Read more about what institutions can do to ensure a generation of scientists and their future work isn't lost.
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