The Construction and Meaning of Race within Hypertension Guidelines: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Context:Professional society guidelines are evidence-based recommendations intended to promote standardized care and improve health outcomes. In the context of increased recognition of the role racism has played in shaping medical practices, many healthcare researchers and practitioners have critiqued existing guidelines, particularly those that include race-based recommendations. These critiques question how implicit-and sometimes explicit-racism has influenced both the evidence that guidelines are based on and the interpretation of that evidence.

Why Causation Matters

“…[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Simultaneously, the use of Black "race" as a risk factor in medicine is being challenged across various health outcomes. [18][19][20][21] Accordingly, the intention of this article is to encourage a paradigm shift in our causal frameworks, one that embraces anti-racist thinking and praxis by recognizing the harm and limitedness of maintaining a race-based paradigm that labels Black "race" as the risk factor and instead names anti-Black racism as the root cause of these persistent disparities, thereby revealing important and highly treatable pathways (Fig. 1).…”