Black History Month 2021

Health Data, Data Science & Racism

In honour of Black History Month, ONIG would like to shed light on the racial biases that remain present in the collection and use of health care data within the development of AI and Big Data algorithms. A number of articles  (article 1 & article 2) have noted the inequities and health disparities that are created by AI driven health tools, and the work that is needed to keep racial biases out of these tools. One researcher, Joy Buolamwini, has focused her research on dismantling racial and gender bias in AI tools and services. Her work, in addition to work completed by other researchers, is helping to drive systemic change in the collection of health data and the development of equitable algorithms.