Letter to the Editor: Editorial: Beware of Studies Claiming that Social Factors are "Independently Associated" with Biological Complications of Surgery.

To the Editor, In a recent editorial, Seth Leopold MD addressed the use of race and insurance status in orthopaedic research. As a group that prioritizes health disparities research, we take issue with many of Dr. Leopold’s statements and feel compelled to respond to his conclusion that “orthopaedic surgeons should be skeptical of papers that link social factors that have little or no physiology to them (such as insurance status and race) with biological endpoints or medical complications after surgery” [18]. We believe this statement is counterproductive because, while race is a complex concept [7], it reliably correlates

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