Achieving Racial Equity in Research and Medicine

Framing race and ethnicity as biological constructs removes the social context that is necessary to understand and adequately address racial health disparities. Achieving health equity and eliminating these health disparities requires reframing our thinking to incorporate the social contexts that contribute to inequity.

“The narrow framing of research questions and interpretation of study results have emerged from the exclusively biomedical framing of health and race in the health sciences. This gaping deficit is compounded by the lack of diversity in expertise on research teams (eg, social scientists, racial and ethnic studies scholars, etc) and lack of community member input, which would otherwise serve to promote a more broadly construed view of race and ethnicity.”^[1]

In the push to increase data sharing and integration, agencies often gloss over the very real effects of racial bias in system design — with serious consequences for the populations they serve. But intentionally centering racial equity from the ground up can result in data integration that’s both effective and ethical. — AISP’s Toolkit for Centering Racial Equity Within Data Integration

In this final part, we will explore frameworks and solutions that directly address the role racism plays in health outcomes. The information provided is not exhaustive, but it will highlight effective strategies designed to reduce disparities in health and health outcomes for people of color.