The impact of woke ideology is not limited to political discourse and education; it is also affecting scientific inquiry, which is the foundation of progress in every field. Woke ideology has become dominant in medical research, leading to the disappearance of honest and accurate inquiry. This is a worrying trend for patient health and public policy.
A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports disproportionately higher mortality rates in Black males and females between 1999 and 2020. The study identifies “structural racism, unmet social needs, and systemic bias as root causes.” However, previous research suggests that almost all the racial gap in life expectancy can be explained by other factors, such as family income, education, occupation, unemployment, urban residence, home ownership, and marital status. The authors of the latest study assume that these factors are all racially determined, which is not necessarily the case.
There are other factors at play, such as regular exercise and dietary patterns, which contribute to the disparity in life expectancy between African Americans and other groups. The researchers of the latest study did not consider these factors, likely because of their woke agenda. Their findings cannot be considered scientific research because they view the world through a black/white paradigm that is vulnerable to nuance they refuse to consider.
The National Institutes of Health reports that Asians and Latinos had a higher life expectancy than whites in 2019. If group outcomes are a product of racism, then Asians have become the primary beneficiaries of the white power structure. Woke ideology ignores this fact altogether.
The new JAMA study is emblematic of the expert class’s obsession with radical theories about gender and race and its willingness to eschew rigor in the pursuit of political goals. Disparities in mortality can be ameliorated with commonsense remedies such as diet, exercise, preventive screenings, and regular visits with a primary-care provider. Public-health experts should prescribe practical solutions instead of learned helplessness and hopelessness, cloaked in the guise of “science.”
