LibGuides: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) in Medicine: Race & Medicine

Race & Anti-Racism Topics in Medicine

Welcome to the Race & Medicine portion of the DEIA guide. From here, users can explore what resources the library has available to support research on race and anti-racism in medicine and beyond, review literature on specific health concerns and implications for patient care, and discover books from our DEI collection that speak to the important experiences of marginalized voices and communities.

Recommended Resources & Learning Materials

What is systemic racism?
Systemic racism is the imposition of racial oppression by dominant racial groups through established societal institutions. While an individual can carry out singular acts of bigotry, systemic racism is defined by repeated patterns of racial discrimination perpetuated by social institutions toward people deemed subordinate. A racial hierarchy of power is key to the existence of systemic racism.

In medicine, systemic racism can manifest as disparities in healthcare treatment and access, under-representing communities of color in clinical trials, cultural competence gaps in healthcare providers and medical education curriculum, and structural barriers in professional advancement.

Racism's Hidden Toll
Interactive publication from the New York Times that traces the history of systemic medical oppression faced by people of color in the United States.

What is implicit bias?
Implicit bias refers to the unconscious collection of stereotypes and attitudes that we develop toward certain groups of people. These biases can impact both patients and providers alike. Providers may unknowingly exhibit biases in communication, diagnosis, and treatment decisions. These biases contribute to health disparities. Additionally, providers themselves can experience bias based on factors like gender, race, or age. Addressing implicit bias through awareness, education, and systemic change is crucial for equitable patient care and a supportive work environment.

What are microaggressions?
Microaggressions are brief, everyday interactions or behaviors that demean or marginalize individuals based on their perceived or actual membership in a particular group. Microaggressions can be verbal, physical, or environmental. In health care settings, they can take various forms related to implicit bias. There are 3 types of microaggressions:

Microinsults - rude and insensitive comments, made either unconsciously or consciously, that disrespect a person's identity
Microassaults - more deliberate and intentionally harmful microaggressions. This might be what is traditionally considered "overt discrimination."
Microinvalidations - the act of ignoring or invalidating someone's experiences or identities. Microinvalidations dismiss lived realities and reinforce harmful norms.

Unconcious Bias in Medicine
This is a free, evidence-based, CME activity created by Stanford Medicine. Learners will understand how to apply course content to their own environments through reviewing case studies with examples of unconscious bias, doing self-learning assessments, and identifying strategies to spot and stop bias.
The Everyone Project: Implicit Bias Training
American Academy of Family Physicians provides a curriculum framework for identifying and reducing implicit biases in clinical practice.
The Empathy Project
The Empathy Project brings together leaders in medicine, education, entertainment, and technology to promote empathy in medicine through engaging short films. Teaching materials for facilitators are available on their website.
Implicit Racial/Ethnic Bias Among Health Care Professionals and Its Influence on Health Care Outcomes: A Systematic Review
Am J Public Health. 2015 Dec;105(12):e60-76. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302903. Epub 2015 Oct 15.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care persist as a significant challenge in the United States. These disparities are rooted in longstanding structural and systemic inequities driven by racism and discrimination. Key drivers of racial and ethnic health disparities include unequal access to health care leading to worsened health outcomes, social determinants of health, provider bias and discrimination, and bias within health algorithms or technologies.

Health Equity Education Center
The American Medical Association (AMA) provides curated, peer-reviewed learning modules designed to address different aspects of health equity and disparities.
Exploring Racism and Health: An Intensive Interactive Session for Medical Students
Interactive class session curriculum geared toward medical students. The goals of this case-based discussion are to explore the history of institutional racism, how racism manifests in medicine today and its effects on health.
Racism as a Determinant of Health: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
PLoS One. 2015 Sep 23;10(9):e0138511. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0138511. PMID: 26398658
The Impact of Health Care Algorithms on Racial and Ethnic Disparities: A Systematic Review
Ann Intern Med. 2024 March: 1-14. doi:10.7326/M23-2960
The mental health impact of anti-Asian racism
NIH-funded study highlights the financial toll of health disparities in the United States

Anti Racism Resources for all Ages

Below is a collection of resources curated by Dr. Nicole A. Cooke at the University of South Carolina. Described as "just a starting point", this collection contains over 200 anti-racism resources in multiple formats: videos, books, infographics, podcasts, and more. Not specific to medicine.

Featured Titles at the Medical Library

Just Health by Dayna Bowen Matthew
Call Number: WA 300AA1 M437j 2022
"This book examines how deep structural racism embedded in the fabric of American society leads to worse health outcomes and lower life expectancy for people of color. By presenting evidence of discrimination in housing, education, employment, and the criminal justice system, Dayna Bowen Matthew shows how racial inequality pervades American society and the multitude of ways that this undermines the health of minority populations." - Provided by the publisher.
Our Fight Has Just Begun: Hate Crimes and Justice in Native America by Cheryl Redhorse Bennett
Call Number: E 99.N3 B471o 2022
Publication Date: 2022-03-01
"This book provides a compelling history, documentation and analysis of hate crimes committed against Navajos and Native Americans in the Four Corners."-- Provided by publisher.
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
Call Number: E 184.S75 O77a 2018
Publication Date: 2018-01-30
"Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations such as "manifest destiny" and "Jacksonian democracy," and shows how placing African American, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms US history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism."
Two Faces of Exclusion: The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States by Lon Kurashige
Call Number: E 184.A75 K96t 2016
"From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Immigration Act of 1924 to Japanese American internment during World War II, the United States has a long history of anti-Asian policies. But Lon Kurashige demonstrates that despite widespread racism, Asian exclusion was not the product of an ongoing national consensus; it was a subject of fierce debate . . . Kurashige explains the rise and fall of exclusionist policies through an unstable and protracted political rivalry that began in the 1850s with the coming of Asian immigrants, extended to the age of exclusion from the 1880s until the 1960s, and since then has shaped the memory of past discrimination." - Publisher Description
Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington
Call Number: W 20.55.H9 W318m 2008
"The first comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between Africans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the way both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without a hint of informed consent--a tradition that continues today within some black populations . . . This book reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit."--From publisher description.