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Tuskegee and the Health of Black Men*
Open accessAbstract
For 40 years, the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male passively monitored hundreds of adult black men with syphilis despite the availability of effective treatment. The study’s methods have become synonymous with exploitation and mistreatment by the medical profession. To identify the study’s effects on the behavior and health of older black men, we use an interacted difference-in-difference-in-differences model, comparing older black men to other demographic groups, before and after the Tuskegee revelation, in varying proximity to the study’s victims. We find that the disclosure of the study in 1972 is correlated with increases in medical mistrust and mortality and decreases in both outpatient and inpatient physician interactions for older black men. Our estimates imply life expectancy at age 45 for black men fell by up to 1.5 years in response to the disclosure, accounting for approximately 35% of the 1980 life expectancy gap between black and white men and 25% of the gap between black men and women.
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“Conversely, a lack of trust in public health officials may lead to negative effects on utilization of health services 198 .”
From Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response (2020) · cites this paper as [198]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Alsan, M., & Wanamaker, M.
- Affiliations
- The Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- Venue
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2017-08-02
- Volume
- 133
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 407-455
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- PMC
- PMC6258045
- OpenAlex
- W2431687448
- Cited by
- 464
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2026: 37 · 2025: 60 · 2024: 79 · 2023: 65 · 2022: 62 · 2021: 79 · 2020: 45 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 14
- FWCI
- 24.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (P30AG017253)
- National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R03MD011449)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Ethics in Clinical Research
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Race, Genetics, and Society
- Keywords
- Tuskegee syphilis study, untreated syphilis, Black men, medical mistrust, life expectancy, racial disparities in health, physician-patient interaction, mortality, older men, sex differences in health
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