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NAACP and Sanofi have together developed a new blueprint to prevent artificial intelligence from deepening racial inequities. The three-tier governance framework calls for U.S. hospitals, tech firms and regulators adopting AI tools to implement bias audits and prioritize "equity-first standards," according to Reuters.
The organization offers recommendations for transparency reporting, establishing data governance councils and forming community-based partnerships for AI development.
WHY IT MATTERS
In the 75-page report, Building a Healthier Future: Designing AI for Health Equity, the NAACP called for urgent action to embed fairness, visibility and engagement at every stage of AI development.
Released earlier this month, the blueprint specifically addresses algorithms used in diagnostics and treatment decisions and covers unchecked bias risks.
The NAACP said that studies show that algorithms trained on poor quality data could misdiagnose Black patients or recommend less aggressive care.
"What we mean in general by AI governance is building principles, concepts, frameworks for ensuring that as we begin to develop and deploy AI, that we do it in ways that are very intentional, very ethical … in ways that don't scale or replicate historical disparities," taskforce chair Dr. S. Craig Watkins, executive director of the IC² Institute at the University of Texas, told Reuters.
The NAACP said it will work with health systems, technology developers and others to create toolkits and on various legislative efforts to help set ethical guardrails.
The organization said it is developing a legislative proposal to drive equity-minded thinking across the landscape of AI development, such as in research tackling rare diseases, according to Reuters.
"We are connecting and thinking about, more intentionally, how we engage Black legislators across the United States to show how regulatory frameworks, how policy proposals, can be developed that are ethically centered and equity focused," Dr. Chris Pernell, director of the NAACP Center for Health Equity, said in the article.
THE LARGER TREND
Propelled by the evidence of racial disparities in Black maternal mortality rates, medical devices like pulse oximeters and other areas of medicine, the NAACP is campaigning to address disparities for Black Americans in advanced health technologies as part of its civil rights mission.
In early January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration shared draft updated guidance on pulse ox devices used in healthcare. The FDA's pulse oximeters website has not been updated since, and the measure to increase regulatory scrutiny on the devices appears stalled.
When it comes to AI, however, experts say that racial bias risks are justifiable.
It is important to work closely with clinical stakeholders, implementation scientists and human-factors specialists, according to Mayo Clinic's Dr. Sonya Makhni, a clinical informaticist who serves as medical director of Mayo Clinic Platform. She sat down with Healthcare IT News for an explainer last year to discuss at which points in AI development bias can creep in.
"Bias can be introduced and/or propagated during every phase, including deployment," Makhni had said. "Involving key stakeholders can help mitigate the risks and unintended impacts caused by algorithmic bias," she advised.
Although working with providers, tech developers and academic institutions could go a long way to assuring the safety of healthcare AI, any state mobilization efforts that are part of NAACP's larger effort to promote equity as health technologies emerge, however, could be stalled.
Last week, the White House released an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to create a national AI policy framework to avoid a patchwork of differing U.S. state regulations.
The EO assigns Attorney General Pam Bondi to form a task force within 30 days of the date of the order to litigate against state AI laws that are inconsistent with national policy, including those that "unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing federal regulations, or are otherwise unlawful in the Attorney General's judgment."
ON THE RECORD
"When you have such a powerful tool and you look at health outcomes and health access, we must be a part of the conversation to ensure that bad data isn't leveraged to further disparities among communities," NAACP President Derrick Johnson told Reuters.
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
