Furthermore, the study did not look at a “general population of people in the United States,” as stated. A plurality of respondents were Arab and/or Muslim.
These, and other issues, drew concerns from two social scientists.
“If the authors had openly stated that their intent was to disproportionately focus on these communities, that may have been legitimate,” Alexandra Fishman and Dean McKay wrote in RealClearEducation. “Instead, they framed their clearly skewed results as representative of the broader American public.”
Fishman is the director of data and analytics for StandWithUs, a Jewish advocacy group. Professor McKay is a psychology scholar at Fordham University.
The pair also questioned the claims about racism against healthcare workers. “[T]he study claims to be the first nationwide survey to document ‘systemic’ racism against healthcare providers. In fact, 68% of participants were not healthcare workers,” the pair wrote.
“A survey of less than 400 medical professionals is, at best, a pilot study that cannot prove anything ‘systemic’ about healthcare institutions in the United States,” the scholars wrote.
Fishman and McKay said the results are skewed due to “snowball sampling” and the survey being distributed online, which means activists were more likely to participate.
Fordham professor says author of study did not respond to criticism
Professor McKay told The Fix that neither he nor Fishman had heard from the study’s authors. “Our criticisms were pretty serious,” he said, “and that would ordinarily result in a response.”
When The Fix asked McKay why studies like this one gain traction, the Fordham professor said scientists have an “ethical responsibility to present their data in a way that the public will reasonably understand, and present it accurately.”
He said that “this study was presented in a way that was clearly designed to sensationalize.”
However, he pointed out that the “challenge is that most people won’t dissect the findings for the methodology flaws, particularly because most of the time we are not in a position to do so.”
McKay went on to criticize the handling of the study, stating that the “biggest issue” was that the study and the Institution’s Review Board, “tried to have it both ways.”
He told The Fix that “the institution wanted to distance themselves from the study” by issuing a statement that the IRB’s approval did not reflect the views of the organization.
“At the same time,” McKay noted, “institutions are responsible, via their IRBs, for the quality of studies done under their auspices.”
“This should have resulted in an audit of the study and possibly revocation of the approval,” he said, calling this situation a “serious issue.”
A social scientist at Catholic University of America reaffirmed these concerns about the study in his comments to The Fix.
Professor Michael New said the study is “more a political call to action than a legitimate scientific inquiry.” He regularly comments on polling and social science research.
The sample size is too small “to arrive at results with any degree of statistical confidence,” New said. The professor also pointed out “first hand” and “face to face” racism was rare.
“Respondents were far more likely to experience racism through an online, possibly anonymous, social media post or in a news story,” New said.
The sample size needs to be both “larger and random” before an institution should be declared “systemically racist,” New said.
“The main problem with this study is that it is not a random sample,” he said. ““We do not know the specific demographic breakdown of the health care professionals that were surveyed. However, we do have good information about the larger survey where these results were obtained.”
New went on to criticize the sample size.
“Over 27 percent of those surveyed were Palestinian — even though Palestinians constitute only 0.05% of the United States population,” New noted. ““”Almost 36 percent of those sampled were Arab or Arab American.”
However, Arabs only constitute about 1 percent of the United States population, a point raised by the RealClearEducation essay.
He raised similar concerns about the oversampling of Muslim, LGBTQ, and African-American individuals.
“Overall, such a skewed survey provides little information about racism directed toward Palestinians either among health care professionals or in other contexts,” New said.
Author’s study responds to criticism
Professor Ghannam, the author of the study, said “more research is needed” when asked by The Fix for comments on criticism raised of his study.
“Our study results are not based on a representative sample, but a convenience sample,” Ghannam said. The survey is “an initial snapshot of [anti-Palestinian racism] in the healthcare setting.
The Fix also asked the professor about claims the data reflects the sentiment of specific advocacy, rather than a systemic reality within American healthcare. “The results do reflect the experiences of multiple groups, including advocacy groups.”
Lastly, Ghannam was asked how his study distinguishes between interpersonal racism and institutional policy. “We do not make any statements, nor are we able to make this distinction based on our first sample,” he said.
