Health Disparities

Introduction This article brings together studies across disciplines to understand the relationship between structural racism, poverty, and child health. Structural racism is defined as “differential access to societal goods, services, and opportunities by race.” The authors argue that a focus on poverty without appropriate consideration of racism has failed to address the negative health outcomes…

This study argues that health inequalities research systematically overlooks the role that racially and socioeconomically privileged groups play in producing health disparities and documents this “diversion” across grants, datasets, published articles, and national health policy. Introduction This study examines a significant blind spot in health inequalities research: the near-total absence of scrutiny directed toward racially…

This scoping review examines and analyzes literature regarding ways structural racism contributes to racial disparities and health inequities in chronic pain. Introduction In their 2022 article, Letzen et al. explore the relationship between structural racism and chronic pain disparities in the United States. Building upon existing literature that documents racial differences in pain treatment, this…

Introduction This study seeks to evaluate whether policies and laws that were classified as either protective or harmful are associated with premature mortality rates. In essence, the analysis is a new method for measuring structural racism and estimating the joint effects of multiple laws on racial health equity. In the study, laws are deemed as…

Introduction Despite the significant role that power asymmetries play in driving health inequities, there is a dearth of research on the intersection of power, racism, and health equity. In this article, Michener argues that housing is a driver of racial health inequity and that tenants play a significant and overlooked role in combating health-threatening housing…

Introduction This article introduces a framework called the Policy Equity Assessment that was designed for policy analysts and researchers to assess a policy’s or program’s ability to reduce inequities. This framework couples policy analysis approaches with rigorous equity-focused research methods. This combination allows for a more comprehensive equity analysis compared to other research methods. This…

Introduction For Americans, the murder of George Floyd marked 2020 as the year of the “racial awakening” in the United States. Largely led by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, protests and calls for racial justice spread across the country and inevitably reached medical institutions too. In collaboration with White Coats for Black Lives—a national…

Introduction This study seeks to understand the best ways to address racial and ethnic disparities within healthcare institutions, with a particular focus on organization management. The study draws upon learnings from the Disparities Solution Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and specifically references data produced from the Disparities Leadership Program (DLP) that began in 2007. The…

Introduction Racism in healthcare settings is a persistent and complex problem for both healthcare delivery and access to health services. Over the past decade, several publications demonstrate the experiences of racism faced by minoritized patients such as the enduring racist assumptions about pain tolerance of Black people, the low propensity for screening Black women for…

Introduction This cohort study aims to identify, address and quantify the relationship between longevity ( “all cause mortality”) and wealth as it relates to Black individuals versus white individuals. Furthermore, the study then models how reparations payments to the black community could potentially affect the longevity ( “all cause mortality”) gap between Blacks and whites.…