Bringing psychological science to bear on racial health disparities: The promise of centering Black health through a critical race framework.

Abstract

Significant racial health disparities persist between Black and White individuals in the United States. Psychological science has contributed much to understanding how the interpersonal consequences of racism shape the short-and long-term health of Black Americans across the lifespan. The field has understood experiences of racism as individual-level psychosocial risk and examined stress and coping processes used to alleviate resulting distress. However, the authors argue that the traditionally ahistorical, acontextual, risk-based, and individual approach of psychological science may hamper its ability to reduce racial health disparities. They discuss ways in which a Critical Race Theory framework may further strengthen psychological science's ability to orient toward equitable practices in the reduction and prevention of racial health disparities. As currently available psychological science approaches are compatible with a Critical Race Theory framework, they discuss the merits and implications of employing this framework. What is the significance of this article for the general public?If psychological science aims to reduce racial health disparities, it must seek to intervene upon racism as a system impacting Black Americans' health rather than merely intervening upon the ways in which individual Black Americans perceive racism. Centering the strengths of the Black community through counter storytelling and capacity building while employing a Critical Race Theory approach in practice, policy, and research provides concrete ways to intervene upon racism and restore power to oppressed communities. Such restorative justice is necessary to eliminate racial health disparities.

Socioeconomic Status and Psychosocial Resources Mediate Racial/Ethnic Differences in Psychological Health Among Gay and Bisexual Men: A Longitudinal Analysis Using Structural Equation Modeling

“…In our operationalization of SES, we incorporated indicators, such as education, employment, chronic strain due to neighborhood conditions and net worth, that are considered as downstream consequences of institutionalized racism (Williams et al, 2019;Williams & Mohammed, 2013). The construction of this variable is consistent with a more complex, multifaceted, and contextualized approach to scholarship on race, racism, and health as articulated in Volpe et al (2019).…”

“…Guided by developments in the minority stress model ( Meyer, 2003 ) and intersectionality theory ( Bauer, 2014 ; Crenshaw, 1991 ), researchers are examining the additive and multiplicative factors that contribute to adverse health outcomes among individuals with multiple minority identities. This research orientation allows us to shift from an ahistorical, acontextual, risk-based, and individual approach to understanding health disparities to a historical, contextual, and resilience-based approach ( Volpe et al, 2019 ). Current intersectionality research with sexual and gender minorities, albeit limited, suggests that economic or financial disadvantage reinforces adverse health outcomes at the intersection of sexual orientation and sociodemographic characteristics ( Amroussia et al, 2019 ).…”

Investigating the Health Consequences for White Americans Who Believe White Americans Are Wealthy

“…Thus, the intent of the present work is not to create a racial hierarchy of suffering nor to draw attention away from the troubling health disparities faced by racial minority groups in the United States. Instead, we hope to highlight that socially constructed ideas about how race connotes social class yield multifaceted forms of societal harm (Richeson & Sommers, 2016;Volpe et al, 2019).…”

State- and Provider-Level Racism and Health Care in the U.S.

“…The authors do not use the term perceived to qualify these experiences, in accordance with previous literature. 28 Data from secondary publicly available data sets were compiled (U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor and Statistics, U. S. Department of Justice) (Appendix, available online) to measure the domains of structural racism at the state level (i.e., political participation, employment and job status, educational attainment, and judicial treatment), following an established method. 15 Eight indicators of state-level racism were calculated as the ratios of Black to White individuals on a given indicator by the state after accounting for differences in overall numbers of Black versus that of White individuals in that state (Appendix, available online).…”