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Public Health

Sentences that come directly from the article are in quotation marks. CSUN students, faculty, and staff can access most articles through the University Library using CSUN credentials. Please use the library’s interlibrary loan services if an article of interest is not available.

Borrell, L. N. (2018). Editorial: Critical race theory: Why should we care about applying it in our research? Ethnicity & Disease, 28(Suppl. 1), 215–218. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.28.S1.215

  • This supplement includes a collection of 10 articles including qualitative and quantitative empirical research as well as a few commentaries applying CRT to current issues or public health education. The articles were presented in three domains: Defining CRT, Applying CRT, and Training the Next Generation.

Bowleg, L. (2012). The problem with the phrase women and minorities: Intersectionality—an important theoretical framework for public health. American Journal of Public Health, 102(7), 1267–1273. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.300750

  • Bowleg describes the history and central tenets of intersectionality, addresses some theoretical and methodological challenges, and highlights the benefits of intersectionality for public health theory, research, and policy.

Burrell, M., White, A. M., Frerichs, L., Funchess, M., Cerulli, C., DiGiovanni, L., & Lich, K. H. (2021). Depicting “the system”: How structural racism and disenfranchisement in the United States can cause dynamics in community violence among males in urban Black communities. Social Science & Medicine, 272, Article 113469. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113469

  • The authors analyzed three published sources (two documentary films and one ethnography) that contain “lived experience perspectives on community violence escalation among African American males in three U.S. cities experiencing civil unrest due to structural racism.” Qualitative descriptive analysis identified three key themes: racialized policies and practices, economic and social disenfranchisement, and intrapsychic factors.

Butler, J., III., Fryer, C. S., Garza, M. A., Quinn, S. C., & Thomas, S. B. (2018). Commentary: Critical race theory training to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities: The Public Health Critical Race Praxis Institute. Ethnicity & Disease, 28(Suppl. 1), 279–284. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.28.S1.279

  • The authors describe a unique and vital training experience, the Public Health Critical Race Praxis Institute at the University of Maryland’s Center for Health Equity. The institute used the public health critical race methodology to structure their curriculum.

Crewe, S. E. (2019). The task is far from completed: Double jeopardy and older African Americans. Social Work in Public Health, 34(1), 122–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/19371918.2018.1562398

  • Using CRT, this article reviews the report released in 1964 by The National Urban League on the state of older African Americans. It then addresses the contemporary state of African Americans, focusing on income, education, poverty, and health status. The article also includes the scholarship of seminal scholars on the Black aged as context.

Cunningham, B. A., & Scarlato, A. S. M. (2018). Ensnared by colorblindness: Discourse on health care disparities. Ethnicity & Disease, 28(Suppl. 1), 235–240. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.28.S1.235

  • The authors conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with key informants and seven focus groups with personnel employed by a large Minnesota health care system. They used “a race-conscious approach to examine how respondents’ accounts align or diverge from colorblindness.”

Ford, C. L. (2020). Commentary: Addressing inequities in the Era of COVID-19: The pandemic and the urgent need for critical race theory. Family & Community Health, 43(3), 184–186. https://doi.org/10.1097/fch.0000000000000266

  • Ford discusses ways in which Public Health Critical Race Praxis can be used to “name racism explicitly and challenge specific ways in which systems of power operating in the field or in society contribute to racial/ethnic inequities,” especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ford, C. L., & Airhihenbuwa, C. O. (2010). Critical race theory, race equity, and public health: Toward antiracism praxis. American Journal of Public Health, 100(S1), S30–S35. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2009.171058

  • The authors introduce CRT to the public health community, highlight key CRT characteristics, and describe CRT’s contribution to a study on racism and HIV testing among African Americans.

Ford, C. L., & Airhihenbuwa, C. O. (2010). The public health critical race methodology: Praxis for antiracism research. Social Science & Medicine, 71(8), 1390–1398. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.07.030

  • To improve “the ease and fidelity with which health equity research applies CRT, this paper introduces the Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP). PHCRP aids the study of contemporary racial phenomena, illuminates disciplinary conventions that may inadvertently reinforce social hierarchies and offers tools for racial equity approaches to knowledge production.”

Ford, C. L., Takahashi, L. M., Chandanabhumma, P. P., Ruiz, M. E., & Cunningham, W. E. (2018). Anti-racism methods for big data research: Lessons learned from the HIV testing, linkage, & retention in care (HIV TLR) study. Ethnicity & Disease, 28(Suppl. 1), 261–266. https://doi.org/10.18865/ed.28.S1.261

  • This article “describes the application of Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP) to the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Testing, Linkage and Retention in care (HIV TLR) study (N = 3,476,741), which connects multiple large datasets to electronic medical records to examine contextual determinants of racial/ethnic disparities in HIV care continuum outcomes in southern California.” As HIV TLR demonstrates, “PHCRP’s innovative tools and strategies help big data research maintain fidelity to CRT.”

García, J. J., Gee, G. C., & Jones, M. (2016). A critical race theory analysis of public park features in Latino immigrant neighborhoods. Du Bois Review, 13(2), 397–411. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X16000187

  • This study uses CRT to examine disparities in park availability in Los Angeles. The authors use a unique park dataset created in ArcGIS to carry out a county-wide assessment of the availability of park features at the neighborhood level. Results indicate that “Latino immigrant neighborhoods have limited park availability.

Gilbert, K. L., & Ray, R. (2015). Why police kill Black males with impunity: Applying Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP) to address the determinants of policing behaviors and “justifiable” homicides in the USA. Journal of Urban Health, 93(Suppl. 1), 122–140. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-015-0005-x

  • This article applies the Public Health Critical Race Praxis to develop a framework that can improve research and interventions to address the disparities in recent trend analyses of “justifiable homicides.”

Graham, L., Brown-Jeffy, S., Aronson, R., & Stephens, C. (2011). Critical race theory as theoretical framework and analysis tool for population health research. Critical Public Health, 21(1), 81–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2010.493173

  • The authors provide a brief overview of a recent mental health study employing CRT and discuss how CRT can contribute to the sociology of mental health. They also propose ways CRT can be used in psychosocial health research.

Hicken, M. T., Kravitz-Wirtz, N., Durkee, M., & Jackson, J. S. (2018). Racial inequalities in health: Framing future research. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 11–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.027

  • This special issue on Racism and Health Inequalities provides a sample of innovative work and empirical evidence from Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, and the U.S. The 23 papers in this collection “encompass qualitative and quantitative methods and multiple scientific disciplines. Furthermore, they collectively underscore the potential for innovative public health research on cultural and structural racism” and highlight a number of challenges to confront.

Hogan, V., Rowley, D. L., White, S. B., & Faustin, Y. (2018). Dimensionality and R4P: A health equity framework for research planning and evaluation in African American Populations. Maternal & Child Health Journal, 22(2), 147–153. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-017-2411-z

  • The authors developed dimensionality and R4P “to integrate multiple theoretical perspectives into a framework of action to eliminate health inequities experienced by African Americans.” The dimensional framework incorporates CRT and intersectionality. The five components of R4P are (1) Remove, (2) Repair, (3) Remediate, (4) Restructure, and (5) Provide.

Ingram, M., Leih, R., Adkins, A., Sonmez, E., & Yetman, E. (2020). Health disparities, transportation equity and complete streets: A case study of a policy development process through the lens of Critical Race Theory. Journal of Urban Health, 97(6), 876–886. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-020-00460-8

  • This case study “examines the potential for an equity-focused policy process to address systemic barriers and identify potential measures to track progress toward equity outcomes.” CRT is used “to examine grant reports, task force notes, community workshop/outreach activities, digital stories, and stakeholder interviews.” Findings show that “transportation inequities are entrenched in historically rooted disparities that are perpetuated in ongoing decision-making processes.”

Madden, E. F. (2015). Cultural health capital on the margins: Cultural resources for navigating healthcare in communities with limited access. Social Science & Medicine, 133, 145–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.04.006

  • Ethnographic data collected during 2011–2013 in Cameron and Hidalgo counties on the U.S.–Mexico border provide empirical evidence for expanding existing notions of health-relevant cultural capital. These Mexican American communities “use a range of cultural resources to manage healthcare exclusion and negotiate care in alternative healthcare spaces like community clinics, flea markets and Mexican pharmacies.”

Ossei-Owusu, S. (2016). Racial horizons and empirical landscapes in the post-ACA world. Wisconsin Law Review, 2016(3), 493–514.

  • This article focuses on the fusion of CRT studies and public health. It highlights how CRT would benefit from engagement with different brands of public health scholarship, particularly in the post-Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act world.

Phojanakong, P., Brown Weida, E., Grimaldi, G., Lê-Scherban, F., & Chilton, M. (2019). Experiences of racial and ethnic discrimination are associated with food insecurity and poor health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(22), Article 4369. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16224369

  • This study examines the associations of mothers’ experiences of discrimination with household food insecurity, physical health, and depressive symptoms, while taking into account the influence of mothers’ adverse childhood experiences and public assistance participation. Mothers (N = 1372) of young children under age 4 answered questions for a cross-sectional survey in an emergency room in a large children’s hospital in Philadelphia between 2016 and 2018. Findings show that “public health interventions intended to improve food security and health may be only partially effective without simultaneously addressing racism and discrimination.”

Quinn, S. C., Jamison, A. M., Freimuth, V. S., An, J., & Hancock, G. R. (2017). Determinants of influenza vaccination among high-risk Black and White adults. Vaccine, 35(51), 7154–7159. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.10.083

  • The authors conducted an online survey in March 2015 and assessed demographic, racial, and psychosocial predictors across vaccine uptake in the past five years and across racial group. They found significant differences by race.

Quinn, S. C., Jamison, A, An, J., Freimuth, V. S., Hancock, G. R., & Musa, D. (2018). Breaking down the monolith: Understanding flu vaccine uptake among African Americans. SSM - Population Health, 4, 25–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2017.11.003

  • Employing Public Health Critical Race Praxis and utilizing a nationally-representative 2015 survey of U.S. Black adults (N = 806), the authors explore differences by gender, age, income, and education across vaccine-related measures and racial factors. They find great diversity within the Black community related to influenza immunization decisions.

Thomas, S. B., Quinn, S. C., Butler, J., Fryer, C. S., & Garza, M. A. (2011). Toward a fourth generation of disparities research to achieve health equity. Annual Review of Public Health, 32(1), 399–416. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031210-101136

  • The authors “examine a conceptual framework of three generations of health disparities research to understand (a) data trends, (b) factors driving disparities, and (c) solutions for closing the gap.” They propose “a new, fourth generation of research grounded in public health critical race praxis, utilizing comprehensive interventions to address race, racism, and structural inequalities and advancing evaluation methods” to foster the ability to eliminate disparities.

Vardeman-Winter, J. (2017). The framing of women and health disparities: A critical look at race, gender, and class from the perspectives of grassroots health communicators. Health Communication, 32(5), 629–638. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2016.1160318

  • The author interviewed 15 communicators and community health workers from grassroots organizations that focus on women’s health to learn of their challenges of communicating with women from communities experiencing health disparities. Findings suggest that communicators face difficulties in developing meaningful messaging for publics because of “disjunctures between medical and community frames, issues in searching for health among women’s many priorities, Whiteness discourses imposed on publics’ experiences, and practices of correcting for power differentials.”
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