Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care

Matthew’s Just Medicine: A Cure for Racial Inequality in American Health Care tackles disparities in the quality of care received by different racial and ethnic groups, establishing the role that implicit bias plays in perpetuating these disparities, which lead to inequitable health outcomes for marginalized communities, particularly African Americans and Latino communities. Matthew argues that while explicit forms of discrimination in healthcare may have faded over the years, implicit bias continues to thrive in healthcare settings, often unconsciously shaping the decisions of healthcare providers.

Matthew defines implicit bias through multiple contexts. In Just Medicine, she identifies one of the markers of implicit bias as its contrast to explicit bias, arguing that “the distinguishing feature of an implicit bias is that the negative association operates unintentionally or unconsciously. In contrast, an explicit bias is an evaluation about groups of people that operates at a level that includes awareness, choice, and conscious intentionality” (39). Matthew explains that the implicit biases of healthcare providers are particularly dangerous because they often go unnoticed by the very individuals who hold them. The unconscious nature of them makes them difficult to confront or correct. Unlike explicit bias, where harmful attitudes are consciously held and expressed and can be more easily identified and challenged, implicit biases operate under the surface.