Special Series: Racial Bias and Pulse Oximeters Part 1–A Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

Public Health On Call

About this episode:

Pulse oximeters—devices used to read blood oxygen levels in hospitals and at home—are far less reliable for people with darker skin tones... Falsely normal readings create the potential for clinical staff to miss life-threatening conditions.

In this three-episode special series, we explore a longstanding issue that only caught the nation’s attention in recent years. In episode 1: How COVID-19 shined a light on an issue that was known, but largely ignored.

Listen to Part 2: What Went Wrong?

Listen to Part 3: Fixing Pulse Oximeters.

View the transcript for this episode.

Host:

Annalies Winny is a co-producer of the Pulse Ox series for the Public Health On Call podcast, an associate editor for Global Health NOW, and a contributor for the Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health magazine.

Show links and related content:

• The Problem with Pulse Oximeters: A Long History of Racial Bias

• Estimating COVID-19 Hospitalizations in the U.S.—JMIR Public Health Surveillance

• How a Popular Medical Device Encodes Racial Bias–Amy Moran-Thomas

• People with darker skin are 32% more likely to have pulse oximeters overestimate oxygen levels, report says–CNN

• Racial Bias in Pulse Oximetry Measurement—The New England Journal of Medicine

• Dynamic in vivo response characteristics of three oximeters: Hewlett Packard 47201A, Biox III, and Nellcor N-100—Sleep (1987)

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