Physicians’ implicit biases, however, showed strong associations with their decisions to give thrombolysis. Figure 3 illustrates how each of the three IAT results and the combined IAT composite predicted thrombolysis decisions for black and white patients. Subpanel A shows that as the degree of antiblack bias on the race preference IAT increased, recommendations for thrombolysis for black patients decreased. The interaction between implicit antiblack bias and patient race on treatment recommendation was significant (P = .009). After controlling for physicians’ explicit race bias, race, sex, SES, and belief in thrombolysis effectiveness, the interaction effect of patient race and thrombolysis remained significant. A composite IAT measure combining all three IATs (race, attitude, and stereotypes) showed the same pattern (subpanel D) and was statistically significant both with and without the covariates included in the model (P = .04). The same general pattern also held for the medical cooperativeness IAT (subpanel C); however, the interaction was not statistically significant (P =.21).
