Aversive Racism Research Articles

Faculty/Staff Training to Examine Racial Implicit Bias: Findings and Implications for Creating Inclusive Educational Spaces

Faculty/Staff Training to Examine Racial Implicit Bias: Findings and Implications for Creating Inclusive Educational Spaces

Contribution of Health Care Practitioner and Maternity Services Factors to Racial Disparities in Alabama: A Qualitative Study.

Black patients are three times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than White patients in the United States, and Alabama has the third worst maternal mortality rate in the nation. We sought to identify health care practitioner and maternity service factors contributing to disparities in Alabama, as well as potential strategies to address these contributors. We conducted key informant interviews with obstetricians, nurses, doulas, lactation counselors, health system administrators, and representatives of professional organizations who deliver maternity care to racially and ethnically diverse patients in Alabama. The interview guide was developed using Howell's conceptual framework on racial and ethnic disparities in severe maternal morbidity and mortality. Adopting a thematic analysis approach, we coded and analyzed transcripts using NVivo 12 software. Open coding and selective coding were conducted to identify themes related to health care practitioner- and maternity services-level determinants. Overall, 20 health care practitioners or administrators were interviewed. Primary themes related to health care practitioners included implicit bias and explicit racism, lack of communication and lack of positive patient-health care practitioner relationships, lack of cultural sensitivity, and variation in clinical knowledge and experience. Primary themes related to maternity services included lack of accessibility, inadequate quality and content of care, lack of continuity of care, discriminatory facility policies, and workforce shortages and lack of diversity. Strategies suggested by participants to address these factors included bias trainings for health care practitioners, improvements in racial and interdisciplinary diversity in the maternity workforce, and evidence-based interventions such as group prenatal care, disparities dashboards, simulation trainings, early warning signs criteria, and coordinated care. We gained diverse perspectives from health care practitioners and administrators on how maternity health care practitioner and maternity health services factors contribute to inequities in maternal health in Alabama. Strategies to address these contributing factors were multifaceted.

Discrimination as a relational matrix of analysis: race, gender, age, social class, immigration, religion, politics, and civil identification: a case study of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The general objective of this research is to analyze how and to what extent racist, patriarchal, classist and political arguments are interlocked and mutually reinforced in multiple residual forms today. This article adopts Foucault’s concepts of biopower and normalization to analyze the persistence of racism surrounding unequal and discriminatory power relations and the oppression of racialized, gender, and social inequalities (Foucault 1994; Koopman 2013). A representative survey was applied to 759 urban inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who answered a questionnaire asking for their socio-demographic characteristics, perceptions, expectations, attitudes, practices, and intergroup relationships regarding racism, patriarchalism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, class discrimination and political-ideological self-identification. The multivariate method of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied, and the results show the predominance of patriarchal values against women, LGBTQ+, Black, youth and poor persons, through explicit racism and the legitimation of the use of violence for both, men and women. Women primarily reject providing sex education at school, agree with their domestic role as wives and with the idea that females’ behavior causes their own rapes, reject LGBTQ marriage, and discriminate against youths, while men rank first the domestic role of women, explicit racism and criminalization of Black people.

The Experiences of Black Students in Physical Therapy Education in Texas: A Qualitative Study.

Racial or ethnic minorities are underrepresented in many health care professions, including physical therapy. Understanding the experiences of minority students in graduate education provides insight into how physical therapy educational programs can promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, which are factors that have been shown to improve patient outcomes. The purpose of this study is to qualitatively analyze and describe the lived experiences of Black student physical therapists (PT) in Texas. Currently, there is a lack of qualitative research that investigates the experiences of Black students in physical therapy education in the United States. Nineteen Doctor of Physical Therapy students from 8 different physical therapy educational programs in Texas. This qualitative study was conducted using a phenomenological approach. All participants took part in a focus group regarding their academic experiences. Students' dialogues were recorded and transcribed, and the researchers identified recurrent themes. After the analysis of focus group content, it was determined that the following 5 themes characterized the students' experiences: 1) Barriers to enrollment, 2) underrepresentation, 3) implicit and explicit racism, 4) code-switching, and 5) desired image. There is evidence to suggest that Black or African American students are subject to unique pressures that negatively affect their experiences during their PT education. Efforts need to be made by higher education institutions and individuals to provide a more inclusive environment to best support those students. By gaining awareness of the results of this study, educators and students can begin dialogues on how to foster inclusivity and cultural understanding in physical therapy education. Ultimately, understanding the experiences of others can improve how individuals coexist in an increasingly diverse society, and how clinicians provide patient-centered, culturally aware care to patients and clients.

Relationships between the race implicit association test and other measures of implicit and explicit social cognition.

The race-based Implicit Association Test (IAT) was proposed to measure individual differences in implicit racial bias subsumed within social cognition. In recent years, researchers have debated the theoretical tenets underpinning the IAT, questioning whether performance on this task: (1) measures implicit attitudes that operate automatically outside of conscious awareness; (2) reflects individual differences in social cognition; and (3) can predict social behavior. One way to better address these research questions is to assess whether the race-IAT correlates with other implicit processes that are subsumed within social cognition. The current study assessed whether the race-IAT was related to other commonly used individual difference measures of implicit (and explicit) social cognition. Experiment 1 assessed whether dissociable patterns of performance on the race-IAT were related to measures of implicit imitative tendencies, emotion recognition and perspective taking toward White task actors, as well as explicit measures of trait and state affective empathy and racial bias. Overcoming limitations of task conceptual correspondence, Experiment 2 assessed whether these latter tasks were sensitive in detecting racial biases by using both White and Black task actors and again examined their relationships with the race-IAT. In two lab-based experiments, 226 and 237 participants completed the race-IAT followed by an extensive battery of social cognition measures. Across both experiments, pro-White/anti-Black bias on the race-IAT was positively related to a pro-White bias on explicit measures of positive affective empathy. However, relationships between the race-IAT and implicit imitative tendencies, perspective taking, emotion recognition, and explicit trait and negative state affective empathy were statistically equivalent. The race-IAT was consistently related to explicit measures of positive state affective empathy but not to other individual difference measures of implicit social cognition. These findings are discussed with regards to the theoretical underpinnings of the race-IAT as an individual difference measure of implicit social cognition, as well as alternative explanations relating to the reliability of social cognition measures and the various combinations of general-purpose (social and non-social) executive processes that underpin performance on these tasks.

Regional Implicit Racial Bias and Rates of Breast Reconstruction, Complications, and Cost Among US Patients With Breast Cancer

Racial disparities influencing breast reconstruction have been well-researched; however, the role of implicit racial bias remains unknown. An analysis of the disparities in care for patients with breast cancer may serve as a policy target to increase the access and quality of care for underserved populations. To identify whether variations in implicit racial bias by region are associated with the differences in rates of immediate breast reconstruction, complications, and cost for White patients and patients from minoritized racial and ethnic groups. This cohort study used data from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) from 2009 to 2019. Adult female patients with a diagnosis of or genetic predisposition for breast cancer receiving immediate breast reconstruction at the time of mastectomy were included. Patients receiving both autologous free flap and implant-based reconstruction were included in this analysis. US Census Bureau data were extracted to compare rates of reconstruction proportionately. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to classify whether implicit bias was associated with the primary outcome variables. Data were analyzed from April to November 2022. IAT score by US Census Bureau geographic region. Variables of interest included demographic data, rate of reconstruction, complications (reconstruction-specific and systemic), inpatient cost, and IAT score by region. Spearman correlation was used to determine associations between implicit racial bias and the reconstruction utilization rate for White patients and patients from minoritized racial and ethnic groups. Two-sample t tests were used to analyze differences in utilization, complications, and cost between the 2 groups. A total of 52 115 patients were included in our sample: 38 487 were identified as White (mean [SD] age, 52.0 [0.7] years) and 13 628 were identified as minoritized race and ethnicity (American Indian, Asian, Black, and Hispanic patients and patients with another race or ethnicity; mean [SD] age, 49.7 [10.5] years). Implicit bias was not associated with disparities in breast reconstruction rates, complications, or cost. Nonetheless, the White-to-minoritized race and ethnicity utilization ratio differed among the regions studied. Specifically, the reconstruction ratio for White patients to patients with minoritized race and ethnicity was highest for the East South Central Division, which includes Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee (2.17), and lowest for the West South Central Division, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas (0.75). In this cohort study of patients with breast cancer, regional variation of implicit bias was not associated with differences in breast reconstruction utilization, complications, or cost. Regional disparities in utilization among racial and ethnic groups suggest that collaboration from individual institutions and national organizations is needed to develop robust data collection systems. Such systems could provide surgeons with a comparative view of their care. Additionally, collaboration with high-volume breast centers may help patients in low-resource settings receive the desired reconstruction for their breast cancer care, helping improve the utilization rate and quality of care.

Teacher Education Students’ Implicit Racial Attitudes and Interpersonal Attribution of Racialized Student Behavior

Teachers have been shown to hold lower behavioral expectations for Black students than for their White peers, and the mechanism underlying this may be teachers’ implicit attitudes about their Black students based on causal attributions. This study examined this connection, predicting that teacher education students (TES) who scored higher on the racial implicit bias test would attribute internal causality and controllability to explain challenging behaviors in the classroom more frequently for Black students than for White students. 233 teacher education students completed the racial bias section of the Implicit Assessment Test and a set of questions assessing causal attribution based on four vignettes depicting student misbehaviors in a classroom setting. We found that regardless of implicit bias, TES were more likely to believe that Black students had an internal locus of causality and controllability than their White counterparts when presented with similar instances of challenging behavior. These results support the need for teacher preparation programs to address how these internal beliefs of teacher education students affect what they learn about managing their expectations around students’ behavioral regulation and to what they attribute these behaviors.

Implicit Racial Bias Attitudes and Mitigation in Neonatal Nurse Practitioners: A Quality Improvement Project.

to assess the impact of education using the implicit bias recognition and management (IBRM) teaching approach. longitudinal quasi-experimental design. Surveys at baseline, immediate postimplementation, and 4-week postimplementation using the modified version of the Attitudes Toward Implicit Bias Instrument (ATIBI). The 4-week survey included items about implicit bias recognition and mitigation strategies. thirty-six neonatal nurse practitioners assigned to the NICU in a Midwest urban children's hospital. one-way repeated-measures analysis of variance was used, and the score range was 16-96. The results showed a statistically significant model, F (1.49, 707.97) = 34.46, p <.001, partial η2 = 0.496. Pairwise comparisons showed improvement from pre (M = 73.08, SD = 9.36) to immediate postimplementation (M = 80.06, SD = 8.19), p <.001. Scores were sustained at 4-week postimplementation (M = 79.28, SD = 10.39), p = .744. The IBRM teaching approach improved scores from baseline on a modified ATIBI that remained improved 4 weeks after the education.

Experiences of Microaggression by Black Professionals in Social Services in Portugal

ABSTRACT The study explores the experiences of microaggression by Black professionals in the social service field in Portugal. In depth interviews were conducted with seven participants and the data was analyzed thematically. Critical race theory and the conceptual framework of “microaggression” as a specific form of implicit racism is used to elucidate the everyday experiences and consequences of microaggression. The themes under experiences of microaggression in the workplace indicate how Black professionals are perceived as the racial Other, the triad of microaggression from the supervisor, subordinates and coworkers, white fragility, pressure to assimilate, ethno-racial matching, gendered racism and the organizational culture that perpetuates microaggression. The results indicate how “lusotropical” narratives of Portuguese national identity as a “good” colonizer led to the denial of racism which perpetuates microaggression. The research also highlights the consequences of microaggression, particularly the intergenerational trauma associated with racism and shaped by colonial systems of cultural oppression. This study recommends engaging in radical social work action that challenges oppression at both an individual and structural level through ideological critique and collective political movements for anti oppressive social policy changes.

Experimento sobre prejuicio racial: efectos del contacto, toma de perspectiva y empatía

Prejudice is a psychological, cognitive and social phenomenon in which a negative attribution or judgment is directed towards another individual because of his or her belonging to a specific social group. This article presents an experiment that aims to investigate the relations between implicit racism, perspective taking, empathy and contact. Participants (40) wrote a narrative essay about a day in the life of a black and young man portrayed in a photograph. Half of the sample received instructions based on perspective taking-other and the other half received instructions to stay objective and neutral. All participants responded to the Implicit Association Test (IAT) about racism. The results of the IAT showed neutrality in relation to the implicit racism in the studied sample. The analysis of the essays revealed the absence of negative stereotypes, the presence of contents that are part of the lives of the participants.

Supplemental Material for Implicit Bias Against Muslim Men Attempting to Access Counseling or Psychotherapy? A Correspondence Audit Study Examining Aversive Racism

Supplemental Material for Implicit Bias Against Muslim Men Attempting to Access Counseling or Psychotherapy? A Correspondence Audit Study Examining Aversive Racism

Displacement beyond dislocation: Aversive racism in gentrification studies

In this article, we argue for a critical gentrification studies that includes a more expansive and nuanced understanding of how displacement works, beyond the mapping and counting of dislocated bodies. As part of our argument, we introduce the concept of aversive racism to the geographical literature on displacement, pointing to this insidious mode of spatial practice that we argue is widely constitutive of place-making and place-taking processes in gentrifying areas. We do this by first providing a review and analysis of how displacement has been conceptualized and measured in existing geographical scholarship on gentrification, followed by a critical examination of the gentrification literature's engagement with race and racism, and a final argument for an affective approach within a Black geographies framing that encourages more analyses based on experiential encounters with more-than-physical displacement-by-gentrification.

Overcoming hurdles of gender and race: seasoned U.S. practitioners reflect on their career progressions in journalism and public relations

ABSTRACT This study gives voice to US women who overcame the challenges of their gender or race and had to switch jobs or industries to achieve success in the journalism and public relations professions. A feminist theoretical approach was adopted to conduct in-depth qualitative interviews with 18 racially diverse journalists and public relations practitioners over the age of 50 who reflected on their professional mobility in different stages of their careers and in different organizational settings. Regardless of the industry and type of organization, women shared firsthand experiences of gender inequalities in pay and career progressions, double standards in physical appearance, and subtle sexism. Minority journalists and public relations practitioners reported instances of subtle racial inequalities and gendered racism. Women who switched from journalism to public relations found more flexibility in the workplace but did not necessarily improve their job security. Participants’ accounts underscored the need for recruiting, retaining, training, and empowering employees of diverse genders, races, ethnicities, and ages and addressing implicit sexism and implicit racism in all communication industries. This research also calls for improved industry standards that allow older women, especially women of color, to have more opportunities for leadership and professional development.

Estimating the Reliability and Stability of Cognitive Processes Contributing to Responses on the Implicit Association Test.

Implicit measures were initially assumed to assess stable individual differences, but other perspectives posit that they reflect context-dependent processes. This pre-registered research investigates whether the processes contributing to responses on the race Implicit Association Test are temporally stable and reliably measured using multinomial processing tree modeling. We applied two models-the Quad model and the Process Dissociation Procedure-to six datasets (N = 2,036), each collected over two occasions, examined the within-measurement reliability and between-measurement stability of model parameters, and meta-analyzed the results. Parameters reflecting accuracy-oriented processes demonstrate adequate stability and reliability, which suggests these processes are relatively stable within individuals. Parameters reflecting evaluative associations demonstrate poor stability but modest reliability, which suggests that associations are either context-dependent or stable but noisily measured. These findings suggest that processes contributing to racial bias on implicit measures differ in temporal stability, which has practical implications for predicting behavior using the Implicit Association Test.

Is There an Implicit Racial Bias in the Case Order of Elective Total Joint Arthroplasty?

Identifying ways to improve equitable access to healthcare is of the utmost important. In this study, we analyzed whether patient race was negatively associated with surgical start times for total joint arthroplasties (TJA). The surgical case order and start times of all primary TJAs performed at a large academic medical center between May 2014 and May 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were included if > 21, had a documented self-reported race, and were operated on by an arthroplasty fellowship-trained surgeon. Operations were categorized as first-start, early (7:00 AM-11:00 AM), mid-day (11:00 AM-3:00 PM), or late (after 3:00 PM). Multivariable logistic regression (MLR) was performed, and odds ratios (OR) were calculated. This study identified 1663 TJAs-871 total knee (TKA) and 792 total hip arthroplasties (THA) who met inclusion criteria. Overall, there was no association between race and surgical start time. Upon sub-analysis by surgical type, this held true for TKA patients, but self-identifying Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black patients undergoing THA were more likely to have later surgical start times (ORs: 2.08 and 1.88; p < 0.05). Although there was no association between race and overall TJA surgical start times, patients with marginalized racial and ethnic identities were more likely to undergo elective THA later in the surgical day. Surgeons should be aware of potential implicit bias when determining case order to potentially prevent adverse outcomes due to staff fatigue or lack of proper resources later in the day.

Communicating Concerns, Emotional Expressions, and Disparities on Ethnic Communities on Social Media During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Structural Topic Modeling Approach

Ethnic and racial disparities in the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic raise significant concerns. This study analyzes social media discourses toward four ethnic communities in the United States during the pandemic and reveals disparities in pandemic experiences among them. A total of 488,029 tweets mentioning one of the four ethnic communities, that is, Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans, were investigated by a structural topic modeling approach with emotional expressions and time as covariates in the topic model. The results demonstrate that discourses about Asian, Hispanics, and Native American communities were often induced by pandemic-related events, concerning topics beyond one’s community, and reflecting an experience of implicit racism and an adoption of technical supports from health systems. Meanwhile, discourses about Blacks were racially related, discussing topics within the community, and reflecting an experience of explicit racism and an adoption of psychological supports from ingroup. We discuss the implications of our findings on ethnic health disparities.

Exploring implicit bias among ENT surgeons: an analysis of the implicit association test.

This study aimed to investigate the presence of implicit bias among ENT surgeons and explore the impact of the results of the Implicit Association Test on the surgeons' behaviour towards patients. Seven ENT surgeons who were not black, Asian or minority ethnic were asked to complete the Race Implicit Association Test. The surgeons also completed a survey about their perceptions of their implicit biases and the impact of the Race Implicit Association Test results on their behaviour towards patients. The mean Race Implicit Association Test score for the ENT surgeons suggested a slight bias that favoured white over black people. Furthermore, 42 per cent of the surgeons thought that they had hidden or unconscious racial bias, 42 per cent said they would change their behaviour towards patients after receiving these results and 85 per cent thought that the Race Implicit Association Test was helpful for appraisal purposes. The results suggest that ENT surgeons who are not black, Asian or minority ethnic may have implicit biases towards black patients. These findings highlight the need for interventions to reduce implicit bias among ENT surgeons and improve healthcare outcomes for marginalised populations.

Abstract 725: Prostate cancer risk disparities and sociocultural factors in men of African ancestry

Abstract Introduction: The purpose of this research study was to quantify the prostate cancer (PCa) mortality rate in Men of African Ancestry (MAA) living in the State of Florida, the tri-county region of South Florida including Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade, and to explore the embodiment of sociocultural factors that contribute to the PCa disparity in the United State (U.S.). Method: A quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive study design was used to identify differences in the resident PCa mortality rate in MAA stratified based on single race of Black and birth origin of Haiti (HA), Jamaica (JA), or the United States (U.S.). The intersection of health disparities and the embodiment of chronic exposure to sociocultural stressors was also explored. Results: The Paired t-Test was used for statistical testing. The results indicated death from PCa is a health disparity in MAA in Florida when examined in aggregate by ancestry and disaggregate by birth origin. In the state of Florida, when the PCa death rate was viewed in aggregate by ancestry, a significant difference was found between MAA and Men of European Ancestry (MEA) (t(2)=4.303, p≤.01). There was a statistically significant relationship found between being MAA and death from PCa (r=.866, p≤.01). This suggests there are place based health disparities among MAA in the State of Florida. When the PCa mortality rate in MAA in the tri county region of South Florida was examined in aggregate by ancestry versus disaggregate by birth origin a significant difference was shown between MAA and HA born men (t(2)=4.30, p=0.05). No difference was shown between MAA and U.S., or JA born men. By county, the highest death rate was found in JA born men in Miami-Dade, and HA born men in Broward and Palm Beach. Overall, the lowest death rates in each county were found in U.S. born men. The results suggest that there are clear placed based and birth origin disparities in the South Florida region. Conclusions: Examining differences in the PCa mortality rates in MAA in disaggregate by birth origin provides opportunity for the observation of sociocultural factors that affect health such as cultural beliefs and fears, chronic exposure to stressors such as structural and explicit racism and racialization in the U.S, immigration status and barriers to healthcare; all sociocultural factors that if examined may aid in explaining the increased rate of PCa death experienced by MAA and why the disparity exists. Citation Format: Joan M. Brown. Prostate cancer risk disparities and sociocultural factors in men of African ancestry [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 725.

The Black Lives Matter movement and African American entrepreneurs’ crowdfunding success

This paper examines two aspects of African American restauranteurs—their crowdfunding performance and how such performance has been impacted by the Black Lives Matter movement. More than any other racial group, African American entrepreneurs face challenges securing funds from conventional financial institutions. A welcome addition to the pool of fundraising sources is crowdfunding, a new fintech option. Using binomial logistic regression, we analyzed all of the restaurant crowdfunding projects on Kickstarter.com, dating from 2010 to 2020. Drawing on aversive racism theory and value-belief-norm theory, we uncovered the finding that restaurant crowdfunding projects with African American racial cues were significantly less successful getting funded than their non-African American counterparts. However, the Black Lives Matter movement and the Kickstarter’s endorsement of the movement have significantly increased African American restauranteurs’ crowdfunding success.

Understanding racial disparities in pretrial detention recommendations to shape policy reform

AbstractResearch SummaryFederal pretrial services and probation officers assess defendants and make influential recommendations that defendants be either released or detained, based on their threat to community safety and risk of flight. To inform efforts to reduce disparities in pretrial detention, we examined officers’ decision making about 149,815 defendants across 81 districts. Overall, the probability of a detention recommendation was 34% higher for Black than White defendants. Racial disparities were most pronounced in ambiguous cases that invoked substantial officer discretion—including cases where the defendant had little or no criminal record. Nevertheless, mediation analyses revealed that up to 79% of the racial disparity in detention recommendations operates through institutionalized factors (i.e., pretrial policy) rather than personally mediated factors (e.g., implicit racism or classism). The lion's share of the disparity operates through one institutionalized factor alone: criminal history.Policy ImplicationsThis study illustrates an empirical strategy for understanding the pathways through which disparities operate, which is crucial for shaping effective solutions. Providing officers with training and decision guides could reduce personally mediated bias—which is crucial for high discretion cases. However, this study shows that disparities mostly flow through institutionalized bias. So, greater gains may be had by making strategic shifts in policies and their implementation. One promising direction is to corral criminal history by adopting a tight definition that demonstrably predicts violence and failure to appear, and limiting the weight assigned to criminal history versus other predictive factors, when making recommendations. Another promising direction is to adopt risk‐based release policies that leverage an existing tool to reduce both detention rates and racial disparities.