Working Toward Health Equity Requires Antiracist Teaching

Abstract

Eliminating health inequities requires undoing systemic and institutional racism in society and repairing past harms. The public health and preventive medicine workforce has an important role to play in reaching this goal, but it will require shifting the approach to training and capacity building. Public health and medical training programs are needed, including schools of public health and medicine at universities and workforce development programs, to adopt antiracist pedagogy principles. These principles can help to ensure that training programs have both the content and processes that enable the future and current health workforce to take meaningful action toward racial equity and justice in our society. This paper starts by defining antiracist pedagogy, and 6 key principles are set forth. Then, the authors describe how integrating antiracist pedagogy into training programs is a key strategy for addressing racial health inequities. The paper closes by providing considerations and recommendations for the field of public health and preventive medicine for more fully adopting antiracist pedagogy principles.