About this episode

This episode discusses the financial and health impacts of race-corrected spirometer readings on Black veterans.

Many Black veterans live below the poverty line, often struggling to manage their illnesses. As V.A. hospitals began to stop using race-corrected interpretation of Black patients’ spirometer readings, there was an epiphany: the race correction wasn’t just harming the health of Black patients, it was also hurting them financially. A full transcript of this episode is available at https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2601976.

Topics covered

• health disparities
• race correction
• veterans' health
• financial impact
• spirometer readings

Keywords

• Black veterans
• poverty
• V.A. hospitals
• healthcare
• race correction

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: V.A. hospitals

Places: Black

More episodes of Intention to Treat

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• Is Change Possible? · June 17, 2026 · 24 min
• The Myth of Race and Genetics · June 10, 2026 · 27 min
• BiDil — The Story of the Black Pill · June 3, 2026 · 25 min
• When Race Matters · May 27, 2026 · 27 min
• How Did Race Get Into Lung Testing? · May 13, 2026 · 31 min

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