Pervasive structural racism in environmental epidemiology

Epistemological biases in environmental epidemiology prevent the full understanding of how racism's societal impacts directly influence health outcomes. With the ability to focus on "place" and the totality of environmental exposures, environmental epidemiologists have an important op...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Environmental health Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 119 - 13
Main Authors:	Perry, Melissa J, Arrington, Suzanne, Freisthler, Marlaina S, Ibe, Ifeoma N, McCray, Nathan L, Neumann, Laura M, Tajanlangit, Patrick, Trejo Rosas, Brenda M
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England BioMed Central Ltd 17-11-2021 BioMed Central BMC
Subjects:	African Americans Community involvement Community participation Contaminants Data points Discrimination Environmental epidemiology Environmental Health Environmental justice Environmental racism Environmental research Epidemiology Epistemology Health aspects Hispanic Americans Humans Infertility Institutional racism Leadership Male Male reproductive health Medical research Medicine, Experimental Populations Race Racism Social aspects Social factors Structural racism Systemic Racism United States United States > US Environmental epidemiology Male reproductive health Solutions Structural racism Environmental health Racism Environmental justice
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	Epistemological biases in environmental epidemiology prevent the full understanding of how racism's societal impacts directly influence health outcomes. With the ability to focus on "place" and the totality of environmental exposures, environmental epidemiologists have an important opportunity to advance the field by proactively investigating the structural racist forces that drive disparities in health. This commentary illustrates how environmental epidemiology has ignored racism for too long. Some examples from environmental health and male infertility are used to illustrate how failing to address racism neglects the health of entire populations. While research on environmental justice has attended to the structural sources of environmental racism, this work has not been fully integrated into the mainstream of environmental epidemiology. Epidemiology's dominant paradigm that reduces race to a mere data point avoids the social dimensions of health and thus fails to improve population health for all. Failing to include populations who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in health research means researchers actually know very little about the effect of environmental contaminants on a range of population health outcomes. This commentary offers different practical solutions, such as naming racism in research, including BIPOC in leadership positions, mandating requirements for discussing "race", conducting far more holistic analyses, increasing community participation in research, and improving racism training, to address the myriad of ways in which structural racism permeates environmental epidemiology questions, methods, results and impacts.
ISSN:	1476-069X 1476-069X
DOI:	10.1186/s12940-021-00801-3