Pharmacist Role in Addressing Health Disparities ‐ Part 2: Strategies to Move Toward Health Equity

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Learners will: Identify social structures that serve as root causes of health disparitiesCritically evaluate the ways in which racism, culture, and power perpetuate disparityUse critical reflection to shape their research and advocate for institutional changeMETHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The Integrated Translational Health Research Institute of Virginia (iTHRIV) Health Equity curriculum provides a lens for participants to view health disparities, social structures that create and perpetuate disparities, and the path to a more equitable future. This longitudinal workforce curriculum incorporates the principles of critical race theory (CRT), including: race as a social construct, structural determinism, intersectionality, and the social construction of knowledge. Learners gain practical experience through facilitated group discussions and critical reflection of their own work including research question design, recruitment, dissemination, and enhancing the faculty pipeline. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: To measure the impact of the curriculum, we will evaluate learners’ participation in mentoring activities for persons from underrepresented backgrounds; participation in local and national diversity and inclusion efforts; engagement in community-based research; ability to account for implicit bias and power imbalances in their research design, including in recruitment and retention; and share research findings with community members and research participants. Evaluation strategies will include quantitative and qualitative methodologies. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: There is growing recognition of the impact of racism on the development and perpetuation of health disparities. Public health critical race praxis (an adaptation of CRT) is emerging as a theoretical framework to empower researchers to challenge the status quo in order to achieve health equity.

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“Centering the Margins”: Moving Equity to the Center of Men’s Health Research

American Journal of Men s Health ◽

10.1177/1557988318773973 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 1317-1327 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Derek M. Griffith

Keyword(s):

Health Disparities ◽

Health Equity ◽

Men’S Health ◽

Men's Health ◽

Men Of Color ◽

Equity Research ◽

Health Equity Research ◽

Health Progress ◽

Race Ethnicity ◽

Primary Focus

How might the science of men’s health progress if research on marginalized or subordinated men is moved from the margins of the literature to the center? This commentary seeks to answer this question, suggesting that if more attention is paid to men of color and other marginalized men, the field will be greatly enriched in its ability to understand determinants of men’s health. Reimagining men’s health by moving men’s health disparities to a primary focus of the field may yield critical new insights that would be essential to moving men’s health to the center of health equity research. Focusing on the dual goals of improving the health of marginalized men and examining the determinants of disparities among men and between men and women will yield insights into mechanisms, pathways, and strategies to improve men’s health and address health disparities. Current definitions of health disparities limit the nation’s ability to dedicate resources to populations that need attention—men of color and other marginalized men—that do not fit these definitions. Moving marginalized men to the center of research in men’s health will foster new ways of understanding determinants of men’s health that cannot be identified without focusing on populations of men whose health is as influenced by race, ethnicity, and other structures of marginalization as it is by gender and masculinities. Using Black men as a case example, the article illustrates how studying marginalized men can refine the study of men’s health and health equity.

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