Societal racism

 ( Racism ) 

According to a paper that analyzed published research on PubMed from the years 2005–2007 on the connection between discrimination and health, there is an inverse relationship between the two; furthermore, the pattern is becoming more apparent across a greater variety of issues and data. This study shows that this long known pattern has not disappeared. According to the 1985 Heckler Report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in general Americans were getting healthier and had increased longevity but there is a persisting inequality between Blacks and other minority groups in the rate of death and illness contrasting to the overall population; furthermore, the report notes that this inequality has been around for more than a generation at this point or since better, more factual federal records have been kept.

This is definitive proof that the federal government noticed these racial inequalities in health long before the 2005-2007 study of research data that revealed a pattern. Based on the studies they reviewed it became apparent that regardless of socioeconomic status, racial inequalities in health were present between minority groups for several health issues such as diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and obesity. This shows that health inequities can be alleviated by increasing socioeconomic status but they still persist at all levels. Research findings often lack racial or ethnic variables. A 2023 scoping review of the literature found that in studies involving multiracial or multiethnic populations, race or ethnicity variables lacked thoughtful conceptualization and informative analysis concerning their role as indicators of exposure to racialized social disadvantage. Racialized social disadvantage encompasses systemic and structural barriers, discrimination, and social exclusion experienced by individuals and communities based on their race or ethnicity, resulting in disparities in access to resources, opportunities, and health outcomes.

In addition, there is data that supports the fact that as health care has advanced worldwide overall there are more increases in health inequalities between races. One such study that supports this is "The Progress Toward the Healthy People 2010 Goals and Objectives" which is a review, done by members of the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Center of Excellence on Health Disparities, Morehouse School of Medicine, that explores progress towards improving the overall health quality and longevity of Americans and the health disparities between ethnic groups. To accomplish this they used a system of 31 measures to analyze the progress and disparities; which consisted of 10 leading health indicators (LHI), created by the Department of Health and Human Services, with a few objectives each for twenty two total and the remaining measures were formulated by the group who did the review. The ten leading health indicators are: Physical activity, overweight and obesity, tobacco use, substance abuse, responsible sexual behavior, mental health, injury and violence, environmental quality, immunization, and access to healthcare; the group who did the review supplemented the leading health indicators with 7 more objectives and 2 more measures, infant mortality and life expectancy to give 31 in total. They used these measures to track the disparities between Asians, Hispanic or Latino, Black Non-Hispanics, white non-Hispanic, American Indian or Alaskan Natives, and Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders; Data is not available for every ethnic group for all 31 measures. Using the available data for the objectives they have more than one time period on they found 6 objectives showed a decrease in disparity between ethnic groups and the national average while they found 18 disparity increases across 11 objectives.

This confirms that even as healthcare is advancing and new scientific discoveries are being made overall the disparities between ethnic groups are increasing. This is a trend that was noticed in the 1985 report and has continued through the time worsening its effects and contributing to greater health inequalities. It is possible for structural racism to hinder the health and longevity of minorities.

In 2011, Gee and Ford reviewed ways of conceptualizing structural racism in research. Health researchers use a variety of approaches to measure the impact of structural racism. Adkins-Jackson and colleagues published a guide for measuring structural racism for health researchers, one of several approaches to measurement.

A society, even a race-blind society, can be structured in a way that perpetuates racism and racial inequality even if its individual members do not hold bigoted views about members of other racial groups. Society can still effectively exclude racially disadvantaged people from decision-making or make choices that have a disparate impact on them.Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. (2009) Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. . For example, a policy to give more money to rural schools and less to urban schools is Prima facie neutral: on the face of it, the policy says nothing about race. However, if the rural and urban populations have significantly different racial proportions, then this policy would have a society-wide racial effect.