Misled implies a degree of intent, the wording is ambiguous but I don't assume ill intent by the author, especially when they later spend a paragraph explaining why they did not slice by covariates.
It is either purposefully misleading or unreasonably reckless. It is obviously ambiguous and screams of ragebait. I wanted to punch my monitor and fire the author of article when I read this sentence because it is just inflammatory racebait.
You should consider checking your humors or mediate or something, because wanting to do violence because of some Internet text is not healthy human behavior.