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We’re in This Together: A Reflection on How Bioethics and Public Health Can Collectively Advance Scientific Efforts Towards Addressing Racism

  • Symposium: Institutional Racism, Whiteness, and Bioethics
  • Published:
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Abstract

Racism is a key driver of the social, political, and economic injustices that cause and maintain health inequities. Over centuries and across continents, racism has become deeply ingrained within societies. Therefore, we believe that it is our professional and ethical obligation as scientists, and public health scholars specifically, to address racism head on in order to ameliorate racialized health disparities. We argue that greater focus is needed on addressing racism rather than race and how race is described or defined. We offer input from public health scholarship to help bioethicists and other scientists contribute to addressing racism. To do so effectively and comprehensively, public health scholars, bioethicists, and other scientists should work together to identify and implement equity-driven collaborations to eliminate the deleterious effects of racism on individuals, families, and communities.

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Notes

  1. Racism can be defined as phenomena that maintain or exacerbate avoidable and unfair inequities in power, resources, or opportunities across groups according to race, ethnicity, culture, and ancestry (Paradies et al. 2015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Science, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Mandy Truong

  2. Center for the Study of Racism, Social Justice and Health, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, 650 Charles E. Young Drive South 21-275E CHS, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1772, USA

    Mienah Z. Sharif

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  1. Mandy Truong
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  2. Mienah Z. Sharif
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Correspondence to Mandy Truong.

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Truong, M., Sharif, M.Z. We’re in This Together: A Reflection on How Bioethics and Public Health Can Collectively Advance Scientific Efforts Towards Addressing Racism. Bioethical Inquiry 18, 113–116 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10069-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10069-w

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