Trigger Warning: This blog discusses sensitive and potentially distressing topics, including unethical, non-consensual, and inhumane health treatment. Reader discretion is advised.
What if I told you that social constructs such as race have been used to determine medical care? Not a
person’s health or pain levels, but race, a socially constructed category of people based on real or perceived physical differences. This sad fact was the case with the national kidney transplant list. For years, Black Americans in need of a new kidney were denied their spot on the transplant list because of an algorithm that calculated Black and non-Black patients differently. This occurred even though Blacks are three times more likely than Whites to have kidney problems. Disturbingly, similar formulations have been used to determine the treatment for heart disease, lung function, and even the delivery approach for pregnant women. How and why has “race,” a socially constructed and historically changing concept been used so egregiously? Let’s use sociology to find out.
The categories used to distinguish race in the U.S. have changed over time. In the 1970s, the U.S. Census used three racial categories to define people. The options were White, Black, and Other, which encompassed Indigenous, Asian, and Hispanic Americans. In 2024, the Census moved to seven categories, which include the following:
- White
- Hispanic or Latino
- Black or African American
- Asian
- American Indian or Alaska Native
- Middle Eastern or North African
- Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
But these labels don’t tell you everything there is to know about a person. They don’t tell you their culture, language, or religion, and they certainly don’t tell you their kidney function or ability to give birth vaginally after a C-section. Yet, racial category formulas were used by kidney professionals for years to determine treatment. The result was that over 14,000 Black people were wrongly kept off the kidney transplant list because of a medical formula.
