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Racism as a Public Health Crisis

Guest Editors:

Dr Helen-Maria Lekas: Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research and NYU School of Medicine, USA
Daniel López-Cevallos: University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Ash Routen: University of Leicester, UK


BMC Public Health welcomed for submissions to its collection on recognizing that racism is a public health crisis. Racism has demonstrated effects on morbidity, mortality and overall well-being and motivates economic and social disparities. There is a need to adopt strategies to address the root causes of racial inequality and for well planned, strategic and sustainable actions to prohibit racial discrimination while treating the underlying factors leading to this.

Meet the Guest Editors

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Dr Helen-Maria Lekas: Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research and NYU School of Medicine, USA

A sociologist trained at Columbia University, Dr. Lekas has been working in Public Health for the past two decades. She is a Research Scientist in the Division of Social Solutions and Services Research, at the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research and an Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Her work is theoretically driven and focuses on improving the health of socioeconomically vulnerable and racialized populations, especially those contending with behavioural health conditions and HIV. Areas of expertise include engagement in medical care, patient-provider relationships, intersectional stigma, and chronic illness management. 

Daniel López-Cevallos: University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA

Daniel López-Cevallos is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Policy, School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research focuses on the intersections of race/ethnicity, migration, gender, class, and other socioeconomic and sociocultural constructs, and their relationship to health and educational issues in the United States and Latin America.
 

Ash Routen: University of Leicester, UK

Ash Routen is a Research Fellow in the Diabetes Research Centre at the University of Leicester in the UK. He works across several areas of interest including ethnic minority health, inclusion and diversity, multiple long-term conditions (multimorbidity), and Covid-19. He serves on the editorial board of BMC Public Health and has authored over 50 publications.


About the collection

Recognizing that racism is a public health crisis which has demonstrated effects on morbidity, mortality and overall well-being and which motivates economic and social disparities is essential in adopting strategies to address the root causes of racial inequality. There is a need for well planned, strategic and sustainable actions to prohibit racial discrimination and treat the underlying factors leading to this. 

Racial discrimination manifests itself in different ways. With a clear connection between poverty and structural racism for example, Sustainable Development Goal 1 - No Poverty looks towards eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 through successful elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.

Systemic and structural racism are embedded in our systems, policies, processes, practices as well as established attitudes and beliefs. BMC Public Health has launched this collection calling for research on racism as a public health crisis. We would particularly welcomed submissions addressing:           

• The effects of race and racism on health
• Racism as a barrier to health equity
• Public health policies addressing systemic racism
• Experiences of racism
• The impact of social inequalities on racial disparities

  1. Sweden has welcomed migrants, but attitudes have shifted, becoming hostile due to populism and the growing number of migrants. This has left migrants feeling unwelcome and marginalized. Few studies have examin...

    Authors: Faustine Kyungu Nkulu Kalengayi, Mazen Baroudi and Anna-Karin Hurtig
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2024 24:699
  2. Despite increasing attention to racial inequities in social determinants of health and health outcomes, less attention has been focused on how structural barriers — embedded in programs and codified in laws — ...

    Authors: Eric Napierala, Bill Rencher, Lori Solomon and Chris Parker
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2024 24:304
  3. Racism is an important determinant of health and driver of racial/ethnic health inequities. Experience of racism has been linked to negative healthcare use and experiences although most studies have been cross...

    Authors: Ricci Harris, Donna Cormack, Andrew Waa, Richard Edwards and James Stanley
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2024 24:136
  4. Persistent, high rates of maternal mortality amongst ethnic minorities is one of the UK’s starkest examples of racial disparity. With greater risks of adverse outcomes during maternity care, ethnic minority wo...

    Authors: Sergio A. Silverio, Nila Varman, Zenab Barry, Nina Khazaezadeh, Daghni Rajasingam, Laura A. Magee and Jacqueline Matthew
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2023 23:2555
  5. Growing recognition of racism perpetuated within academic institutions has given rise to anti-racism efforts in these settings. In June 2020, the university-based California Preterm Birth Initiative (PTBi) com...

    Authors: Shira P. Rutman, Natasha Borgen, Solaire Spellen, Dante D. King, Martha J. Decker, Larry Rand, Alexis Cobbins and Claire D. Brindis
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2023 23:2039
  6. The ethnicity data gap pertains to 3 major challenges to address ethnic health inequality: 1) Under-representation of ethnic minorities in research; 2) Poor data quality on ethnicity; 3) Ethnicity data not bei...

    Authors: Joseph Lam, Robert Aldridge, Ruth Blackburn and Katie Harron
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2023 23:2025
  7. We describe the rationale and study design for “TRUsted rEsidents and Housing Assistance to decrease Violence Exposure in New Haven (TRUE HAVEN),” a prospective type 1 hybrid effectiveness/implementation study of...

    Authors: Guangyu Tong, Virginia T. Spell, Nadine Horton, Thomas Thornhill, Danya Keene, Christine Montgomery, Donna Spiegelman, Emily A. Wang and Brita Roy
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2023 23:1545
  8. 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...

    Authors: Helen-Maria Lekas, Daniel López-Cevallos and Ash Routen
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2023 23:1423
  9. Black Americans have disproportionately higher rates and earlier onset of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) relative to White Americans. We currently lack a comprehensive understanding of how th...

    Authors: Andrea L Rosso, Wendy M. Troxel, Tiffany L. Gary-Webb, Andrea M Weinstein, Meryl A. Butters, Alina Palimaru, Bonnie Ghosh-Dastidar, La’Vette Wagner, Alvin Nugroho, Gerald Hunter, Jennifer Parker and Tamara Dubowitz
    Citation: BMC Public Health 2023 23:636