Critical Race Theory, Race Equity, and Public Health: Toward Antiracism Praxis

“…(CRT) and communitybased participatory research (CBPR) share a primary commitment to social justice and action that challenges power-structural systems and institutions that contribute to health inequities in our society (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010; Salter & Adams, 2013; Wallerstein et al., 2017).”

“The Critical Race Theory principle of centering in the margins (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010) reminds us that the voices of the majority are often not the most important to consider, even in the form of a normalized comparison group.”

“…including research questions that prioritised Indigenous women’s rights to health and use of interpretive frames that give voice to Māori experiences of SLE including theoretical contributions from Indigenous (Smith, 1999), Black feminist and critical race theorists (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010).”

“Public Health Critical Race (PHCR) praxis, introduced earlier, is an approach which supports the application of critical race theory to public health inquiry, especially as it relates to health equity research (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010).”

“Public health research and programs can improve health equity by recognizing racism as a root cause.(14,28) This analysis is limited by the availability, accuracy, and timeliness of county-level data.”

“Critical Race Theory teaches us to consider how the racialized experiences of Black people may contribute to health beliefs and behaviors (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010a, 2010b).”

“Established measures of economic opportunity include (1) earnings rank gap, which is the sex-specific difference between a Black individual’s percentile in the Black earnings distribution and the position in the White earnings distribution45; (2) racial opportunity gap, which is the sex-specific difference in income p…”

“These concepts are further advanced by critical race theory that asserts that shifting the locus of research to squarely represent the perspective of under-represented populations provides an opportunity to generate new and more relevant knowledge about inequities (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010).”

“…scope of CRT has expanded from use by only political scientists who scrutinize voting strategies (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001) and the medical industry as a theoretical framework to analyze the disparities in healthcare outcomes (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010) to a more broad conceptual analytical tool.”

“Understanding these processes and their intersection is critical for effective public health (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010), and may be especially important in the context of dissociation as prior research indicates racism (Fani & Khalsa, 2023; Hall, 2024; Polanco-Roman et al., 2016), sexism (Berg,…”

“Intersectionality, a concept grounded in Black feminism and Critical Race Theory, suggests that multiple forms of oppression and structural inequalities operate within inter - connected systems of power [9 , 10].”

“Instead, we conceptualized these categories as “markers” to identify individuals in various racial contexts, which may determine levels of exposure to racism [5, 39].”

“Within the context of healthcare settings, this can lead into receiving lower quality of care, a misdiagnosis, or traumatization (Edge & Newbold, 2013; Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010a, 2010b; Jones, 2000).”

“27 28 As defined by Bailey et al , structural racism ‘refers to the totality of ways in which societies foster racial discrimination through mutually reinforcing systems of housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, healthcare and criminal justice.”

“75-80 Finally, generalizability of our study may not generalize broadly to other healthcare systems given the unique integrated structure of VA.”

“Subsequently, counterstories offer a new paradigm for health providers who wish to ‘investigate the root causes of health disparities’ (Ford and Airhihenbuwa 2010, 1) by encouraging them to develop critical consciousness.”

“The concept of system-facing support reflected Critical Race Theory’s definition of rac-ism as a system that structures institutions and interpersonal relationships (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010), and GHDC’s value of changing systems to enhance racial equity.”

“…by race/ethnicity has been intentionally constructed in the United States and provides theoretical scaffolding for researchers to guide their scholarship, including use of theory, research methods, and interpretation of data (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010; Gilbert & Ray, 2016; Hudson, 2021).”

“Community-engaged research also provides an opportunity for co-learning between the community of focus and researchers, thus increasing the likelihood of more equitable outcomes and stronger, more relatable interventions [24,25].”

“Revised guidelines and best practices should be developed as explicitly anti-racist [12,27], irrespective of whether engagement activities are conducted in virtual or in-person settings.”

“0 2590 (11) 17,124 (17) 14,400 (21) 6510 (22) < 0.”

“Exploring thedetailedexperiencesof successful Black/African American PA students provides an opportunity to comprehend some of the challenges they face and identify opportunities for educational change.(13,14) This qualitative narrative research study uses critical race theory (CRT) and the cultural capital framework…”

“As has been profoundly described in Critical Race Theory, the scientific method itself has structurally embedded racism (Ford and Airhihenbuwa 2010).”

“It guides researchers through an iterative, fourstage process to carry out health equity– oriented studies while explicitly accounting for and challenging contemporary forms of racism.9 PHCRP integrates (1) conventional empirical methods; (2) Public Health’s organic critical race theory, which emerged over generations…”

“…a lens by recognising institutional racism and situating individual narratives within the wider structural, interpersonal, and historical context of healthcare [20], making it particularly valuable for examining how Black women’s experiences of prenatal testing are shaped by systemic inequities.”

“Racialized health inequities (or health disparities) are by-products of historic race relations, as well as current racial hierarchies [9,10,23–25].”

“…methodology and critical consciousness to encourage the explicit articulation of SDOH (e.g., structural racism such as historical redlining, exposure to noise pollution, or personally-mediated discrimination or acculturation) beyond categorical markers such as race and ethnicity [26, 31, 45, 46].”

“Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP) was developed by Ford and Airhihenbuwa (2010) to understand and address health issues for systemically marginalized and underserved groups by integrating Critical Race Theory into public health research and practice to disman-tle the structural and…”

“These health disparities are highlighted in past literature with a call to action of delving deeper into the root causes of these health disparities through the lens of race consciousness in understanding racialized structures (Edu, 2023; Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010; Hardeman et al., 2016).”

“68,69 Some notable strengths of our study include its longitudinal design with 10-year follow-up of a geographically diverse sample of midlife women, annually collected residential histories, objective measures of central and abdominal adiposity, and substantive control for confounders and…”

“Through their conceptual model projects, students integrated theories from multiple levels of influence and explicitly engaged with critical frameworks, like Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality (Bowleg, 2012; Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010).”

“…studies field and has been disseminated and applied to other academic fields of study, including STEM education, which offers a nuanced and complex understanding of how race and racism intersect within society (Bullock, 2017; Ford et al., 2010; McGee 2020; O ’ Hara 2020; Vakil and Ayers, 2019).”

“The call to differentiate between race and racism as determinants of health is not new in the health sciences (Braveman & Parker Dominguez, 2021; Came & Griffith, 2018; Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010; LaVeist, 1996).”

“…Schulz et al., 2001; Ward et al., 2018); the application of critical race theory and anti-racist approaches to public health (Fleming, et al., 2023; Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010, 2018); and the emergence of feminist and intersectional public health research and theory (Couto et al., 1994; Schulz et…”

“Race is a dynamic phenomenon and signifies historical experiences, contemporary circumstances, and is a marker for being exposed to racism (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010).”

“Structural factors and systemic racism are now widely debated as perpetuating causes of ethnic health inequalities (Delgado and Stefancic, 2017; Ford and Airhihenbuwa, 2010).”

“We aim to increase our publication of research focused on structures (e.g., racism or gender discrimination) instead of minoritized identities or individual characteristics (e.g., race or gender) [36] and research that draws on sound theory (e.g., Critical Race Theory [37] and the Public Health Critical Race Praxis [3…”

“…a structural approach to addressing the problems of a diverse society; centering on the interplay of race, law, and power to examine the role of racism in health inequities (Bernard & Smith, 2018; Cho et al., 2013; Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010; Kaka, 2020; Radebe, 2021).”

“The primary six team members discussed insights gathered from the thematic analytical process of participant thoughts and feelings indicated by thematic analysis and tenets of CRT.11,15,16 Ford and Airhihenbuwa11 explains that using CRT sensitizes researchers to the impact race and racism have on the health and wellbe…”

“In addition, several interviewers had former drug use histories (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010).”

“Acknowledgments This work was partially supported by the US Department of Health and Human Services as a meeting entitled “Workforce Development of AfricanAmericans in Public Health and • Examined the use of critical race theory to conduct health equity research through the development of a public health critical race…”

“In addition, historical and ongoing mistrust of medical research—shaped by inequi-table experiences within the health system—may further reduce willingness to enroll [32].”

“A failure to name and address systemic discrimination as a root cause maintains a status quo that privileges certain groups’ health to the disadvantage of others [21].”

“…et al., 2021), racism (i.e., a system of advantage and oppression based on race that operates at individual, institutional, and societal levels; Ford and Airhihenbuwa, 2010), stereotyping (i.e., beliefs that racially minoritized individuals are culturally and biologically inferior; Cobbinah…”

“Critical race feminism and gendered racism are grounded in social justice and provide a framework to study racism and sexism, which are persistent and embedded in society [14].”

“Public health scholars Ford and Airhihenbuwa (2010) argue that the science of public health does not adequately address how structural racism affects health disparities in practice.”

“Policy changes are needed to expand health insurance coverage, reduce unemployment rates among marginalized groups, and overcome systemic racism in the health sys-tem [40].”

“Eminent scholars in the field of public health have provided guidance, most notably the Public Health Critical Race Praxis model, highlighting the need to approach research with a race conscious orientation [6].”

“Race/Ethnicity We consider race a proxy measure for present day racialization processes.(34) Race was assessed using an item asking, “are you White, Black, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander?” The PSID allows for multiple race mentions, we used the first mention.”

“This new agenda names racism as a powerful and undeniable force (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010; Jenkins et al., 2019), and demands that anti-racism be as powerfully centered in our practice (Came & Griffith, 2019).”

“Analytic modeling Our 4 dichotomous outcomes are as follows: (1) belief that community strategies—on campus or in town—to mitigate the spread of COVID19 are “not restrictive enough” (= 1) compared with “the right balance or too restrictive” (= 0); (2) belief that restrictions to prevent the coronavirus from community…”

“Public Health Critical Race Praxis (Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010a, 2010b) argues that merely documenting racial inequities in health is not sufficient but must be followed by actions that center racial equity and justice.”

“…is more appropriate than critical race theory, which posits that our society is structured by social aspects of race that impact individual life chances based on race (Ford & Airhihenbuwa 2010) or feminist theory, which makes a similar claim, but focuses on sex and gender (West and Zimmerman 1987).”

“Critical race theory framework originated in legal studies and defines race as a social construct in order to promote methodologies centered on race equity [14].”

“However, now that CVH disparities are well established, within-group studies may permit a more contextualized study of social contributors to the development of CVH in black women as supported by critical race theory.(17) Furthermore, the weathering hypothesis underscores the need to study whether adversities and heal…”

“It is from this vantage, that CRT, contrary to postracial claims, asserts that racism is in fact so normal and integral to society that POC have no choice but negotiate it constantly in their daily lives (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012; Ford & Airhihenbuwa, 2010).”