Integrating Racism as a Sentinel Indicator in Public Health Surveillance and Monitoring Systems

Inequity in US Racial/Ethnic Infant Health and Birth Outcomes: The Role of the Adult Sex Ratio as a Potential Indicator of Structural Anti-Black Racism

BACKGROUND

Structural racism accounts for inequity in health outcomes in ways that are difficult to measure. To conduct more actionable research and measure the impact of intervention programs, there is a need to develop indicator measures of structural racism. One potential candidate is the Adult Sex Ratio (ASR), which was identified by Du Bois as an important indicator of social life functioning over 100 years ago and has remained significant up to the present day. This study investigated the utility of this measure.

METHODS

We compared birth/infant health outcomes using the US 2000 Linked Birth/Infant Death Cohort Data Set matched with 2000 Census data on adult sex ratios in multilevel logistic regression models, stratified by the racial/ethnic category of the mothers.

RESULTS

In an adjusted model, the odds of infant death was 21% higher among non-Hispanic Black (NHB) women living in counties in the lowest ASR tertile category when compared to their counterparts in counties in the highest ASR tertile. Similarly, the odds of giving birth to a preterm or a low birth weight infant were each 20% higher among NHB women living in counties in the lowest ASR tertile compared to their counterparts in counties in the highest ASR tertile.

CONCLUSION

ASRs may serve as a useful indicator of anti-Black structural racism at the local level. More research is needed to determine the circumstances under which this factor may serve to improve assessment of structural racism and facilitate health equity research.

Understanding the impact of racism on surgical outcomes in settler nation-states USA and Canada: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

INTRODUCTION

To improve surgical quality and safety, health systems must prioritise equitable care for surgical patients. Racialised patients experience worse postoperative outcomes when compared with non-racialised surgical patients in settler colonial nation-states. Identifying preventable adverse outcomes for equity-deserving patient populations is an important starting point to begin to address these gaps in care. To derive literature-based estimates of the outcome gap for racialised surgical patients, we will systematically review and meta-analyse rates of adverse postoperative events associated with common and/or high-risk operations performed in Canada and the USA.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

An electronic search of Medline, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Central, CINAHL and Scopus will be conducted to identify studies reviewing complication rates of racialised compared with non-racialised patients from inception to December 2023. We will include publications from the USA and Canada comparing surgical outcomes of racialised and non-racialised patients. The procedures of interest will be the four most common (hip arthroplasty, knee arthroplasty, appendectomy and cholecystectomy), and the five highest risk (oesophagectomy, abdominal aortic aneurysm, aortic valve replacement, coronary artery bypass graft and pancreatectomy) surgical procedures performed in these countries. The outcomes will be mortality, length of stay in hospital, readmission, reoperation, wound dehiscence, surgical site infection, pulmonary embolism, sepsis or septic shock, pneumonia, blood transfusion, stroke, myocardial infarction and bile duct injury. Summary estimates of cumulative incidence, prevalence, incidence rate and occurrence rate of complications using DerSimonian and Laird random effects models will be calculated for the systematic review and meta-analysis. Heterogeneity in these estimates will be examined using subgroup analyses and meta-regression.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

This study uses secondary data and, therefore, does not require ethics approval. This study will be communicated through presentations at international conferences and published in peer-reviewed literature. The results from this study will inform the development of future surgical equity tools and quality improvement programmes and provide benchmarks on the impact of racism on surgical outcomes.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42024491439.

State and county level legislative approaches to address racial/ethnic health inequities in Maryland (2012-2021)

Introduction

Public policies and legislative approaches are used to address racial health inequities. While most recent studies examine federal and state-level legislative activity, a paucity of analyses characterize policies enacted in a single state and across local jurisdictions. To address this gap, we identify racial health equity policies in the state of Maryland and describe key features and themes.

Methods

A legal mapping study and content analysis was conducted. Maryland policies and legislative activity adopted at the state or county level (2012-2021) were identified by systematically searching Westlaw and state and county government legislative databases. Information for each policy was ascertained and analyzed to identify content domains.

Results

We identified 22 state-level policies and 10 county-level policies and actions that explicitly addressed racial health inequities. Six domains were identified: healthcare and public health cultural competence; disease-specific care and outcomes; access to healthcare services; social determinants of health; collection action and research infrastructure; and structural racism. At the state- and county- level, most policies pertained to the healthcare and public health cultural competence domain. Of Maryland's 24 counties, only 8 (33%) passed health equity policies and implemented equity-specific policy priorities.

Conclusion

This study provides a snapshot of the Maryland policy landscape and suggests an increasing prioritization of equity policy at the state and county levels. While policies address issues ranging from cultural competence to structural racism, policy content differed by level of jurisdiction. Future efforts to critically evaluate the impact of specific policies on health inequities are needed.

Using a Latent Variable Method to Develop a Composite, Multidimensional Measure of Structural Racism at the City Level

INTRODUCTION

Although structural racism is strongly related to racial health disparities, we are not aware of any composite, multidimensional measure of structural racism at the city level in the United States. However, many of the policies, programs, and institutions that create and maintain structural racism are located at the city level. To expand upon previous research, this paper uses a novel measure to measure structural racism at the city level for the non-Hispanic Black population.

METHODS

We used confirmatory factor analysis to model the latent construct of structural racism for 776 U.S. cities. The model included six indicators across five dimensions: racial segregation, incarceration, educational attainment, employment, and economic status. We generated factor scores that weighted the indicators in order to produce the best model fit. The resulting factor scores represented the level of structural racism in each city. We demonstrated the utility of this measure by demonstrating its strong correlation with Black-White disparities in firearm homicide rates.

RESULTS

There were profound differences in the magnitude of structural racism across cities. There were also striking differences in the magnitude of the racial disparity in firearm homicide across cities. Structural racism was a significant predictor of the magnitude of these racial disparities in firearm homicide. Each one standard deviation increase in the structural racism factor score increased the firearm homicide rate ratio by a factor of approximately 1.2 (95% confidence interval, 1.1-1.3).

CONCLUSIONS

These new measures can be utilized by researchers to relate structural racism to racial health disparities at the city level.

Centering Communities of Color in the Modernization of a Public Health Survey System: Lessons from Oregon

Context

Public health survey systems are tools for informing public health programming and policy at the national, state, and local levels. Among the challenges states face with these kinds of surveys include concerns about the representativeness of communities of color and lack of community engagement in survey design, analysis, and interpretation of results or dissemination, which raises questions about their integrity and relevance.

Approach

Using a data equity framework (rooted in antiracism and intersectionality), the purpose of this project was to describe a formative participatory assessment approach to address challenges in Oregon Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and Student Health Survey (SHS) data system by centering community partnership and leadership in (1) understanding and interpreting data; (2) identifying strengths, gaps, and limitations of data and methodologies; (3) facilitating community-led data collection on community-identified gaps in the data; and (4) developing recommendations.

Results

Project team members' concerns, observations, and critiques are organized into six themes. Throughout this engagement process, community partners, including members of the project teams, shared a common concern: that these surveys reproduced the assumptions, norms, and methodologies of the dominant (White, individual centered) scientific approach and, in so doing, created further harm by excluding community knowledges and misrepresenting communities of color.

Conclusions

Meaningful community leadership is needed for public health survey systems to provide more actionable pathways toward improving population health outcomes. A data equity approach means centering communities of color throughout survey cycles, which can strengthen the scientific integrity and relevance of these data to inform community health efforts.

Exploring the intersections of structural inequities and health disparities: the challenge and opportunity of recognizing racism as a public health crisis

Although increasingly being recognized as a driver of poor health and health inequities, there is limited research on the pervasive effects of racism on population health. In this editorial, we set the context and invite contributions for a BMC Public Health Collection of articles titled, "Racism as Public Health Crisis."