Date of Award

Spring 5-16-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Jennifer Mueller

Abstract

Historically Black people have experienced extreme experiences of medical mistreatment, one of the most prominent and longest running being the Tuskegee Experiment. Racism is not only apparent in the medical industry it is structurally tied to the foundation of American society and it is non-debatable that Black people are tremendously affected by these structures. Past literature has sought out to examine the connection between Black people and the trust that they have in medical institutions. My research builds on this past work and examines how experience with race discrimination affects the trust that a person may have in their doctor’s judgement. Using data from the General Social Survey (N=638) I conducted a multivariate regression. Results showed that having an experience with discrimination because of race was not statistically associated with the trust that someone has in their doctor’s judgement. Although the results of this research did not show statistical support for my hypothesis the non-significance of it raises other important points and areas in need of research. It is also important to acknowledge that although there is no statistical significance in this study that does not cancel out the possibility that experience with race discrimination has some effect on trust in doctor’s judgement. There is a need to further analyze the causal mechanism behind the difference in Black people and people of colors trust in doctors versus White people.

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