Structural Racism and Health: How Anti-Black Racism Affects Risk of Chronic Disease, COVID-19, and Mortality

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Friday, Feb. 24, 2023, 11 am – 12 pm PT

Summary

Structural racism—the ongoing interactions between macro-level systems and institutions that constrain the opportunities, resources, and power of minoritized racial and ethnic groups—is implicated as a fundamental cause of persistent racial inequities in health. Operating through policies, practices, and norms, structural racism influences a broad range of exposures that unfairly advantage White and unfairly disadvantage Black populations. This presentation will: (1) define structural racism as a social determinant of health; (2) discuss methods on how to measure structural racism in public health research, and (3) present my research on how structural racism relates to racial inequities in risk of chronic disease development, COVID-19 outcomes, and being killed by police.

Speaker

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Headshot of Marilyn Thomas

Marilyn Thomas, PhD, MPH is a social epidemiologist investigating the mechanisms by which structural racism contributes to Black-White inequities in disease risk and mortality. Born and raised in San Francisco’s Bayview/Hunters Point District, she earned her Bachelor’s in Microbiology and Master’s in Public Health from San Francisco State University. She earned her Doctorate in Epidemiology from the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Departments of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. Her primary interest is to evaluate policy effects and emphasize methods for causal inference. She is an expert at integrating social theory, measuring racism as a social determinant of health, and estimating the intersections of race, socioeconomic position, and socio-environmental factors using advanced statistical methods and novel study designs. Her research has focused on three domains of Black experiences that uniquely impact Black health: education, anti-Black law enforcement practices and policies, and negative racial bias or race-based discrimination. 

About the ISD Webinar Series

The Investigator Skills Development (ISD) Webinar Series is presented by the Investigator Skills Development Unit (ISDU) of the UCSF Research Coordinating Center to Reduce Disparities in Multiple Chronic Diseases (RCC-RD-MCD). 

Co-Sponsored by CAPS Town Hall and the CAPS Implementation Science and Health Systems (ISHS) Core

ISDU Director: Mandana Khalili, MD, MAS, Professor of Medicine, UCSF, Chief of Clinical Hepatology, San Francisco General Hospital

ISDU Co-Director: Edwin Charlebois, PhD, Professor of Medicine,  Division of Prevention Science, UCSF