A standard screening test given to newborns minutes after birth is a less accurate predictor of infant mortality for Black babies than other children, a new study shows, but the authors said the Apgar test should still be used.
The study, published Tuesday in PLOS Medicine, found that more Black infants were assigned low Apgar scores than white infants and that the scores were better at predicting death in the first year of life in white infants compared with Black babies.