What Hispanics think of using AI in healthcare and medicine

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Making intelligence artificial

We all know artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the latest technological hypes globally.

From self-driven cars to AI-driven search engine ChatGPT, AI is slowly creeping into our way of living.

Importantly, it is also creeping  into our healthcare and medicine.

We are also developing new ways for faster and advanced forms of computer systems to improve AI using quantum computing. Last Monday, the first quantum computer for healthcare research was unveiled at the Cleveland Clinic in collaboration with IBM.

Certainly, AI in medicine is a Lamborghini driving at full speed fueled by its potential to revolutionize quality of healthcare.

 But let’s take a moment to pause and take a step back.

We need to ask the hard questions. What is the public sentiment about using AI in medical care? What do the American public, particularly Hispanics, think?

In this blog, I discuss the recent public survey conducted by Pew Research Center to figure out what Americans think of using AI in health and medicine.

Pew Research Center Survey

What is this center. Pew Research Center focuses on social science research. They do surveys, among other methods, to understand public opinion and trends of issues shaping the U.S and the world.

What they do, what is their mission. As the mention, they do polling to gather public opinion, demographic research, content analysis and social science research. They are a good and valuable source of reliable information about social issues. I have included many another of their research on public interest and knowledge in science.

Why they conducted this survey. Their goal with this is to understand American opinion about using artificial intelligence in health and medicine. Here, they asked 11,004 American adults selected at random across the entire U.S. about using AI in health and medicine. The responses were weighted to represent American population by “gender, race ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education, and other categories”. In the case of ethnicity, they included Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics.

Here, I discuss the survey responses obtained from the Hispanic audience.

Let’s hear the Hispanic public

Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they are growing.

J.B. Priestley

Like most US adults, Hispanics expressed being uncomfortable If their docs relied on AI

57% of Hispanics mentioned they would be very or somewhat uncomfortable if their provider relied on AI. However, compared to responses from blacks (38%) and whites (37%), Hispanics (43%) were the race most comfortable with this.

Most Hispanics think AI in healthcare can improve patient outcomes

40% of Hispanics think AI would improve patient outcome compared to 30% stating AI would make it worse and 28% saying there would be not much difference. Once again, Hispanics (40%) compared to Blacks (35%) and Whites (37%) were the race most optimistic about AI improving patient outcomes.

Like Blacks, most Hispanics say bias over patient race and ethnicity is a major problem in health and medicine.

Interestingly, only 27% of whites said that bias on patient race or ethnicity is a major problem in health and medicine while 42% of Hispanics and 64% of black said it is a major problem.

This data clearly shows that minorities feel there is a significant bias. Another interpretation of this data is that it also shows that there is a lack of awareness of the white majority concerning racial and ethnic bias in health and medicine.

Most Hispanics dangerously think AI would lessen bias over race and ethnicity or make the issue “get better”

50% of Hispanics  think using AI will help the bias get better while 19% say it will get worse and 29% say it will stay about the same.

Among the reason of the entire American population thinking that AI will make the issue get better, the reason behind was basically that AI will just analyze the data without any preconceived ideas.

Among those who said AI would make the issue stay about the same, the reason was that AI is made by humans who are biased, so  the AI will also be biased.

For those that said that AI will make the bias worse, the reason was that AI is trained on “existing dataset which are already biased”.

I describe this as dangerous thinking because although AI can analyze data without bias this HEAVILY depends on the data the AI is fed with. It can discriminate against minorities as I will discuss in an upcoming blog (stay tuned).

AI is a tool, just like a gun. If we compare the bullets as data representative of the American population, the AI will shoot an unbiased shot. But if the AI is fed biased data based only on one population over another, say treatment results based only on a clinical trial having only white patients, the AI gun will shoot a biased shot. It will ultimately miss the bullseye.

Most Hispanics definitely/ probably want AI to be used in their own skin cancer screening.

A whopping 69% compared to 29% mentioned they definitely/probably want AI to be used in their skin cancer screening. Hispanics were also the race that was most receptive compared to Whites (65%) and Blacks (57%).

Interestingly, most Hispanics DO NOT want AI to be used in pain management. In asking whether they would use AI to help choose the pain medication after a surgery, 60% of Hispanics said they definitely/probably do NOT want that.

On that note, most Hispanics DO NOT want AI to be used as surgical robots for their own care. When asked whether they would want the use of surgical robots with AI used while getting surgery, 59% of Hispanics said they definitely/ probably NOT want that.

Additionally, although they do not provide specific race-based answers, they also show that most Americans DO NOT want to use an AI chabot to support mental health.

Let us know what YOU think about using AI for your own healthcare.

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