Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #120176

Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, PhD, Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4 Executive Park Drive, Suite 2400, MS E-67, Atlanta, GA 30329, 404-498-2399, cdj9@cdc.gov

“Race” can be defined as the social interpretation of phenotype in a given place and time, and has been operationalized on the “Reactions to Race” module of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) by the question “How do other people usually classify you in this country?”.

Similarly, racism can defined as the system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of phenotype (“race”). The impacts of racism on health are examined on the 2002, 2003, and 2004 BRFSS by examining whether socially-assigned “race” is associated with general health status, even among those with the same self-identified “race”/ethnicity, and even among those with the same education or income.

Yet as useful as quantitative evidence is for naming racism as a threat to the health and well-being of the nation, our scientific inquiry cannot stop there. Armed with this evidence, we must then ask the question “How is racism operating here?” and use qualitative assessments to identify the mechanisms by which opportunity is differentially structured and value is differentially assigned. We need to examine structures (the “who,” “what,” “when,” and “where”), policies (the written “how”), and practices and norms (the unwritten “how”) to identify and target the root causes of inequity that result in health disparities. We also need to grapple with the “why” in order to create a society in which all people can know and develop to their full potentials.

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