"I can't breathe": A call for antiracist nursing practice

Promoting Health Equity Among Marginalized and Vulnerable Populations

This article calls for a closer examination of health equity regarding the disparities and inequities in health care among marginalized and vulnerable populations. A review of strategies to improve culturally responsive care to these populations will be examined. This examination includes a discussion of the need for structural competence and the ongoing debate around the concepts of cultural competence and cultural humility. Cultural competemility, a new paradigm of thought regarding the relationship between cultural competence and cultural humility, will be proposed. This article culminates with downstream, midstream, and upstream approaches reducing the magnitude of inequity among marginalized and vulnerable populations.

Overcoming Career Advancement Barriers to Executive Leadership Roles of Nurses From Racial and Ethnic Minority Backgrounds

There is underrepresentation of nurses with racial and ethnic minority backgrounds in executive nursing leadership positions as compared with the general population. The management problem is that even when academically prepared, nurses with racial and ethnic minority backgrounds perceive that they face both singular and systemic barriers to promotional opportunities to executive nurse positions. A literature gap exists as to why this phenomenon persists. The purpose of this qualitative narrative inquiry study was to explore the personal stories and lived experiences of executive nurses with racial and ethnic minority backgrounds concerning the barriers they faced and overcame on their pathway to an executive leadership position. The conceptual framework combined the intersectionality of race and internal and external capabilities. Data collected through semistructured interviews underwent a 3-dimensional-space narrative structure and thematic analysis process. Eleven themes in 3 major categories emerged: (a) facing the challenges; (b) overcoming barriers; and (c) where my help came from. The social change implications include new knowledge for multiple stakeholders in supporting and developing nurses from racial and ethnic minority backgrounds to assist them in achieving executive nursing leadership positions, thereby increasing the number of these nurses in executive roles.

Building Solidarity with Black Nurses to Dismantle Systemic and Structural Racism in Nursing

Systemic and structural racism in nursing have profound impacts on Black People, Indigenous Peoples, and People of Color. They contributed to underrepresentation in faculty, senior nurse executives, and presidents' positions in academic and healthcare organizations, physical and mental health issues in racialized groups. This quality improvement study described ways in which the Black Nurses Task Force of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario can build solidarity with nursing and government organizations to dismantle systemic and structural racism in nursing. This study used a structured online survey, comprised of quantitative and qualitative questions. The qualitative data were analyzed using interpretative thematic analysis and the quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive statistics. Findings showed that 88% of participants experienced racism and 63% said racism affected their mental health. Three themes emerged from the qualitative data: Social support for Black nurses, accountability of leaders and solidarity with Black nurses. These findings demonstrated the urgent need to dismantle systemic and structural racism in nursing.

Discussing racism in healthcare: A qualitative study of reflections by graduate nursing students

AIM

The aim is to illustrate and analyse reflections from graduate nursing students over their experience of discussing racism in healthcare in an educational intervention.

DESIGN

A qualitative, descriptive design was adopted.

METHODS

Data were collected through written reflections and analysed through content analysis. In total, 81 students participated in the intervention; 39 paediatric and 42 public health care nursing students. Of those, 27 participants gave consent to have their written reflections included in the study.

RESULTS

Three main categories were developed in the content analysis of student reflections: (a) the implicit embeddedness of racism in healthcare organization; (b) the effect of racism on interactions with patients; and (c) a growing awareness of one's own understanding of racism. This study indicates that student nurses discussed racism as relevant to understanding good clinical practice for the benefit of patients and work-based wellbeing of staff. This recognition of the organizational nature of racism warrants nursing leaders and managers to include racism as a social determinant of health in the undergraduate and graduate curricula to educate the next generation of nursing about racism.

A Nursing School on Reservation Land

ABSTRACT

An associate degree in nursing program was established six years ago at the tribal college of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, home of the Aaniiih and Nakoda people. As this program continues to evolve and grow, it offers a successful example of how to increase diversity in nursing and potentially improve the health outcomes of Native Americans living on and nearby reservation communities.

Antiracist symptom science: A call to action and path forward

Nurse scientists recognize the experience of racism as a driving force behind health. However, symptom science, a pillar of nursing, has rarely considered contributions of racism. Our objective is to describe findings within symptom science research related to racial disparities and/or experiences of racism and to promote antiracist symptom science within nursing research. In this manuscript, we use an antiracist lens to review a predominant symptom science theory and literature in three areas of symptom science research-oncology, mental health, and perinatal health. Finally, we make recommendations for increasing antiracist research in symptom science by altering (a) research questions, (b) recruitment methods, (c) study design, (d) data analysis, and (e) dissemination of findings. Traditionally, symptom science focuses on individual level factors rather than broader contexts driving symptom experience and management. We urge symptom science researchers to embrace antiracism by designing research with the specific intent of dismantling racism at multiple levels.

A Concept Analysis of Structural Competency

Structural competency is a concept that offers a way to understand and respond to health inequities and work toward antiracism in health care. This article undertakes a concept analysis of structural competency using Rodgers' evolutionary method. Based on this analysis, structural competency refers to the ability to recognize and act on structural inequities, skill development, multidisciplinary collaboration, and the reproduction of inequity over time. The meanings and use of this concept differ among disciplines. Multidisciplinary applications of structural competency offer insight into how this concept can foster health equity and antiracism in nursing care, education, research, and health services delivery.

Reiterating a Need for Antiracism Praxis in Nursing and Psychiatric Nursing Education

BACKGROUND

The reemergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 reinforced the need for antiracist and decolonizing praxis in all areas, including nursing education, the burden for which has fallen predominantly on visible minorities. To enact the needed change within health care systems and nursing education, White nurses must recognize their privilege and become active participants in the conversations and change.

METHOD

This two-phase qualitative study explored nursing and psychiatric nursing students' experiences of racism and antiracism education at a small western Canadian university.

RESULTS

Anonymous qualitative surveys (n = 24) and structured interviews (n = 9) with nursing and psychiatric nursing students highlighted the difficulties and complexities of recognizing racism and a present lack of antiracism praxis in educational and health care settings.

CONCLUSION

Nursing educators must reevaluate structural and behavioral aspects of nursing education to support genuine antiracism praxis. [J Nurs Educ. 2022;61(8):439-446.].

Childhood obesity within the lens of racism

Despite decades of research and a multitude of prevention and treatment efforts, childhood obesity in the United States continues to affect nearly 1 in 5 (19.3%) children, with significantly higher rates among Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour communities. This narrative review presents social foundations of structural racism that exacerbate inequity and disparity in the context of childhood obesity. The National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities' Research Framework guides the explication of structurally racist mechanisms that influence health disparities and contribute to childhood obesity: biologic and genetic, health behaviours, chronic toxic stress, the built environment, race and cultural identity, and the health care system. Strategies and interventions to combat structural racism and its effects on children and their families are reviewed along with strategies for research and implications for policy change. From our critical review and reflection, the subtle and overt effects of societal structures sustained from years of racism and the impact on the development and resistant nature of childhood obesity compel concerted action.