The development, evolution, and maintenance of structural racism for the study of health inequities: An expanded framework for Asian, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, and White Americans

Alexis C. Dennis, Rae Anne M. Martinez, Esther O. Chung, Evans K. Lodge and Rachel E. Wilbur

Social Science & Medicine, 2025, vol. 383, issue C

Abstract: Evaluating the relationship between structural racism and health inequity is conceptually and empirically complex. This critical review of policies and events extends a previously published framework for understanding structural racism in health research across ethnoracial groups from 1400 to present. We apply this framework for Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic/Latinx, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and White groups and reflect on, compare, and contrast the overarching patterns within and across groups. Our findings illustrate the utility of our framework as a tool for conceptualizing and operationalizing structural racism in future health research. We suggest that health scholars can advance the field by: (1) recognizing multiple, reinforcing domains of structural racism; (2) expanding research beyond a Black-White binary to include other ethnoracial groups; (3) emphasizing the role of time and its different manifestations as exposure across the life course and cohorts; (4) highlighting the implications of collective resistance and agency as alternatives to deficit models; and (5) disaggregating data, whenever possible, to avoid rendering smaller ethnoracial groups invisible.

Keywords: Structural racism; Structural discrimination; Racial/ethnic; Health disparities; Life course (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953625007142
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:socmed:v:383:y:2025:i:c:s0277953625007142

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
http://www.elsevier. ... _01_ooc_1&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118383

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science & Medicine is currently edited by Ichiro (I.) Kawachi and S.V. (S.V.) Subramanian

More articles in Social Science & Medicine from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().