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Tag: Race and ethnicity

  • Study Finds Relationship Between Discrimination and Frailty in Black Cancer Survivors

    Study Finds Relationship Between Discrimination and Frailty in Black Cancer Survivors

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    Newswise — WASHINGTON — Discrimination experienced by Black people can affect their health and increase their frailty, which can be particularly impactful for cancer survivors, according to a new study by researchers at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and colleagues at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. The researchers assessed frailty by a number of factors, including whether a participant had several chronic diseases, poor muscle strength and difficulty performing activities of daily living.

    The findings appeared March 20, 2023, in Cancer.

    “Discrimination can act as a chronic stressor which can throw the body off balance, resulting in increases in blood pressure, heart rate, metabolism, inflammation, and numerous other factors. These stressors can also increase rates of aging, leading to greater risk of frailty,” says the study’s lead investigator, Jeanne Mandelblatt, MD, MPH, director of the Georgetown Lombardi Institute for Cancer and Aging Research. “We hypothesize that discrimination can lead to an older biological age than a person’s actual chronological age. This is important to understand as there have been virtually no studies of the relationships between discrimination and aging in the setting of cancer survivorship.”

    The investigators looked at associations between discrimination and frailty among 2,232 Black breast, lung, prostate and colorectal cancer survivors who were within five years of their diagnoses and were no longer actively being treated for their cancers. Survivors were 62 years of age on average (with ages ranging from 23 to 84) at the time of the study, but they may have experienced discrimination over many decades of their lives. All participants were part of the Detroit Research on Cancer Survivors (ROCS), which is the largest U.S. study of Black cancer survivors.

    The researchers surveyed the participants, via phone, in writing, or online about any aging-related diseases they had, their ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and most importantly, about major discrimination events they may have experienced over their lifetimes, specifically targeting seven areas:

    • being unfairly fired or denied a promotion in their job;
    • not being hired for a job;
    • being unfairly stopped, searched, questioned, physically threatened or abused by police officers;
    • being unfairly discouraged by a teacher or advisor from continuing their education;
    • unfairly receiving worse medical care than other people;
    • being prevented from moving into a neighborhood because a landlord or realtor refused to sell or rent them a house or an apartment; and/or
    • moved into a neighborhood where neighbors made life difficult.

    Based on the survey results, the majority of cancer survivors were classified as either prefrail (42.7%), meaning they had some health difficulties, or frail (32.9%). Only 24.4% of those surveyed had few or no signs of frailty. When queried about the seven discrimination areas, 63.2% of the participants reported experiencing major discrimination, with an average respondent reporting 2.4 types of discrimination.

    “For those cancer survivors who reported four to seven types of discrimination events, we observed a large, clinically meaningful increase in frailty scores compared to survivors with fewer discrimination events,” explains Mandelblatt, also a professor of oncology and medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. “Significantly, this pattern of discrimination affecting frailty was consistent across the four types of cancer surveyed, indicating that discrimination is an important factor to study and understand in Black cancer survivors in order to improve their quality and length of life.”

    “Our results indicate that after considering the effects of traditional factors on poor health, such as income, education and types of cancer treatment, discrimination was a significant factor explaining frailty and it acted independently of the other variables,” says  Ann Schwartz, PhD, MPH, co-lead author on the paper and co-principal investigator of the Detroit ROCS. “Regardless of whether you were rich or poor, if you experienced more discrimination then you had greater frailty.” Schwartz is also professor and associate chair of oncology at Wayne State University School of Medicine, and deputy center director and executive vice president for research and academic affairs at Karmanos.

    For their next steps, the researchers are hoping to study the relationships between major discrimination, other chronic life stressors and markers of biological aging and test how cancer and its treatment further contributes to biological aging among racial and ethnic minorities. 

    “We have long since recognized the impact of discrimination on health and well-being in Black communities,” says study co-author Lucile Adams-Campbell, PhD, a professor of oncology and associate director for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research at Georgetown Lombardi. “We hope that this study leads to more discussions between providers and their patients about the types of discrimination they have experienced and gives providers a greater understanding of how discrimination impacts frailty.”

                                                                ###

    Additional authors include Xingtao Zhou and Traci Bethea at Georgetown Lombardi; Julie Ruterbusch, Hayley Thompson and Kristen Purrington at Wayne State University School of Medicine and Karmanos Cancer Institute.

    The authors report having no personal financial interests related to the study.

    This research was supported by National Cancer Institute grants U01 CA199240, R01CA129769,  R35CA197289 and K01CA212056 and a National Institute on Aging grant R21AG07500. This work was supported by the Epidemiology Research Core and the National Cancer Institute Center Grant (P30CA022453) awarded to the Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University.

    About Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center
    Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center is designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as a comprehensive cancer center. A part of Georgetown University Medical Center, Georgetown Lombardi is the only comprehensive cancer center in the Washington D.C. area. It serves as the research engine for MedStar Health, Georgetown University’s clinical partner. Georgetown Lombardi is also an NCI recognized consortium with John Theurer Cancer Center/Hackensack Meridian Health in Bergen County, New Jersey. The consortium reflects an integrated cancer research enterprise with scientists and physician-researchers from both locations. Georgetown Lombardi seeks to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer through innovative basic, translational and clinical research, patient care, community education and outreach to service communities throughout the Washington region, while its consortium member John Theurer Cancer Center/Hackensack Meridian Health serves communities in northern New Jersey. Georgetown Lombardi is a member of the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (UG1CA239758). Georgetown Lombardi is supported in part by a National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Support Grant (P30CA051008). Connect with Georgetown Lombardi on Facebook (Facebook.com/GeorgetownLombardi) and Twitter (@LombardiCancer).

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    Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University

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  • Silicon Valley Bank collapse concerns founders of color

    Silicon Valley Bank collapse concerns founders of color

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    In the hours after some of Silicon Valley Bank’s biggest customers started pulling out their money, a WhatsApp group of startup founders who are immigrants of color ballooned to more than 1,000 members.

    Questions flowed as the bank’s financial status worsened. Some desperately sought advice: Could they open an account at a larger bank without a Social Security Number? Others questioned whether they had to physically be at a bank to open an account, because they’re visiting parents overseas.

    One clear theme emerged: a deep concern about the broader impact on startups led by people of color.

    While Wall Street struggles to contain the banking crisis after the swift demise of SVB — the nation’s 16th largest bank and the biggest to fail since the 2008 financial meltdown — industry experts predict it could become even harder for people of color to secure funding or a financial home supporting their startups.

    SVB had opened its doors to such entrepreneurs, offering opportunities to form crucial relationships in the technology and financial communities that had been out of reach within larger financial institutions. But smaller players have fewer means of surviving a collapse, reflecting the perilous journey minority entrepreneurs face while attempting to navigate industries historically rife with racism.

    “All these folks that have very special circumstances based on their identity, it’s not something that they can just change about themselves and that makes them unbankable by the top four (large banks),” said Asya Bradley, a board member of numerous startups who has watched the WhatsApp group grapple with SVB’s demise.

    Bradley said some investors have implored startups to switch to larger financial institutions to stymie future financial risks, but that’s not an easy transition.

    “The reason why we’re going to regional and community banks is because these (large) banks don’t want our business,” Bradley said.

    Banking expert Aaron Klein, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, said SVB’s collapse could exacerbate racial disparities.

    “That’s going to be more challenging for people who don’t fit the traditional credit box, including minorities,” Klein said. “A financial system that prefers the existing holders of wealth will perpetuate the legacy of past discrimination.”

    Tiffany Dufu was gutted when she couldn’t access her SVB account and, in turn, could not pay her employees.

    Dufu raised $5 million as CEO of The Cru, a New York-based career coaching platform and community for women. It was a rare feat for businesses founded by Black women, which get less than 1% of the billions of dollars in venture capital funding doled out yearly to startups. She banked with SVB because it was known for its close ties to the tech community and investors.

    “In order to have raised that money, I pitched nearly 200 investors over the past few years,” said Dufu, who has since regained access to her funds and moved to Bank of America. “It’s very hard to put yourself out there and time after time — you get told this isn’t a good fit. So, the money in the bank account was very precious.”

    A February Crunchbase News analysis determined funding for Black-founded startups slowed by more than 50% last year after they received a record $5.1 billion in venture capital in 2021. Overall venture funding dropped from about $337 billion to roughly $214 billion, while Black founders were hit disproportionately hard, dropping to just $2.3 billion, or 1.1% of the total.

    Entrepreneur Amy Hilliard, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, knows how difficult it is to secure financing. It took three years to secure a loan for her cake manufacturing company, and she had to sell her home to get it started.

    Banking is based on relationships and when a bank like SVB goes under, “those relationships go away, too,” said Hilliard, who is African American.

    Some conservative critics asserted SVB’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion were to blame, but banking experts say those claims were false. The bank slid into insolvency because its larger customers pulled deposits rather than borrow at higher interest rates and the bank’s balance sheets were overexposed, forcing it to sell bonds at a loss to cover the withdrawals.

    “If we’re focused on climate or communities of color or racial equity, that has nothing to do with what happened with Silicon Valley Bank,” said Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, co-founder of Known Holdings, a Black, Indigenous, Asian American-founded investment banking platform focused on the sustainable growth of minority-managed funds.

    Red-Horse Mohl — who has raised, structured and managed over $3 billion in capital for tribal nations — said most larger banks are led by white men and majority-white boards, and “even when they do DEI programs, it’s not a really deep sort of shifting of capital.”

    Smaller financial institutions, however, have worked to build relationships with people of color. “We cannot lose our regional and community banks,” she said. “It would be a travesty.”

    Historically, smaller and minority-owned banks have addressed funding gaps that larger banks ignored or even created, following exclusionary laws and policies as they turned away customers because of the color of their skin.

    But the ripple effects from SVB’s collapse are being felt among these banks as well, said Nicole Elam, president and CEO of the National Bankers Association, a 96-year-old trade association representing more than 175 minority-owned banks.

    Some have seen customers withdraw funds and move to larger banks out of fear, even though most minority-owned banks have a more traditional customer base, with secured loans and minimal risky investments, she said.

    “You’re seeing customer flight of folks that we’ve been serving for a long time,” Elam said. “How many people may not come to us for a mortgage or small business loan or to do their banking business because they now have in their mind that they need to bank with a bank that is too big to fail? That’s the first impact of eroding public trust.”

    Black-owned banks have been hit the hardest as the industry consolidates. Most don’t have as much capital to withstand economic downturns. At its peak, there were 134. Today, there are only 21.

    But change is on the way. Within the last three years, the federal government, private sector and philanthropic community have invested heavily in minority-run depository institutions.

    “In response to this national conversation around racial equity, people are really seeing minority banks are key to wealth creation and key to helping to close the wealth gap,” Elam said.

    Bradley also is an angel investor, providing seed money for a number of entrepreneurs, and is seeing new opportunities as people network in the WhatsApp group to help each other remain afloat and grow.

    “I’m really so hopeful,” Bradley said. “Even in the downfall of SVB, it has managed to form this incredible community of folks that are trying to help each other to succeed. They’re saying, ‘SVB was here for us, now we’re going to be here for each other.’”

    ____ Stafford, based in Detroit, is a national investigative race writer for the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kat__stafford. Savage reported from Chicago and is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Silicon Valley Bank collapse concerns founders of color

    Silicon Valley Bank collapse concerns founders of color

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    In the hours after some of Silicon Valley Bank’s biggest customers started pulling out their money, a WhatsApp group of startup founders who are immigrants of color ballooned to more than 1,000 members.

    Questions flowed as the bank’s financial status worsened. Some desperately sought advice: Could they open an account at a larger bank without a Social Security Number? Others questioned whether they had to physically be at a bank to open an account, because they’re visiting parents overseas.

    One clear theme emerged: a deep concern about the broader impact on startups led by people of color.

    While Wall Street struggles to contain the banking crisis after the swift demise of SVB — the nation’s 16th largest bank and the biggest to fail since the 2008 financial meltdown — industry experts predict it could become even harder for people of color to secure funding or a financial home supporting their startups.

    SVB had opened its doors to such entrepreneurs, offering opportunities to form crucial relationships in the technology and financial communities that had been out of reach within larger financial institutions. But smaller players have fewer means of surviving a collapse, reflecting the perilous journey minority entrepreneurs face while attempting to navigate industries historically rife with racism.

    “All these folks that have very special circumstances based on their identity, it’s not something that they can just change about themselves and that makes them unbankable by the top four (large banks),” said Asya Bradley, a board member of numerous startups who has watched the WhatsApp group grapple with SVB’s demise.

    Bradley said some investors have implored startups to switch to larger financial institutions to stymie future financial risks, but that’s not an easy transition.

    “The reason why we’re going to regional and community banks is because these (large) banks don’t want our business,” Bradley said.

    Banking expert Aaron Klein, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, said SVB’s collapse could exacerbate racial disparities.

    “That’s going to be more challenging for people who don’t fit the traditional credit box, including minorities,” Klein said. “A financial system that prefers the existing holders of wealth will perpetuate the legacy of past discrimination.”

    Tiffany Dufu was gutted when she couldn’t access her SVB account and, in turn, could not pay her employees.

    Dufu raised $5 million as CEO of The Cru, a New York-based career coaching platform and community for women. It was a rare feat for businesses founded by Black women, which get less than 1% of the billions of dollars in venture capital funding doled out yearly to startups. She banked with SVB because it was known for its close ties to the tech community and investors.

    “In order to have raised that money, I pitched nearly 200 investors over the past few years,” said Dufu, who has since regained access to her funds and moved to Bank of America. “It’s very hard to put yourself out there and time after time — you get told this isn’t a good fit. So, the money in the bank account was very precious.”

    A February Crunchbase News analysis determined funding for Black-founded startups slowed by more than 50% last year after they received a record $5.1 billion in venture capital in 2021. Overall venture funding dropped from about $337 billion to roughly $214 billion, while Black founders were hit disproportionately hard, dropping to just $2.3 billion, or 1.1% of the total.

    Entrepreneur Amy Hilliard, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, knows how difficult it is to secure financing. It took three years to secure a loan for her cake manufacturing company, and she had to sell her home to get it started.

    Banking is based on relationships and when a bank like SVB goes under, “those relationships go away, too,” said Hilliard, who is African American.

    Some conservative critics asserted SVB’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion were to blame, but banking experts say those claims were false. The bank slid into insolvency because its larger customers pulled deposits rather than borrow at higher interest rates and the bank’s balance sheets were overexposed, forcing it to sell bonds at a loss to cover the withdrawals.

    “If we’re focused on climate or communities of color or racial equity, that has nothing to do with what happened with Silicon Valley Bank,” said Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, co-founder of Known Holdings, a Black, Indigenous, Asian American-founded investment banking platform focused on the sustainable growth of minority-managed funds.

    Red-Horse Mohl — who has raised, structured and managed over $3 billion in capital for tribal nations — said most larger banks are led by white men and majority-white boards, and “even when they do DEI programs, it’s not a really deep sort of shifting of capital.”

    Smaller financial institutions, however, have worked to build relationships with people of color. “We cannot lose our regional and community banks,” she said. “It would be a travesty.”

    Historically, smaller and minority-owned banks have addressed funding gaps that larger banks ignored or even created, following exclusionary laws and policies as they turned away customers because of the color of their skin.

    But the ripple effects from SVB’s collapse are being felt among these banks as well, said Nicole Elam, president and CEO of the National Bankers Association, a 96-year-old trade association representing more than 175 minority-owned banks.

    Some have seen customers withdraw funds and move to larger banks out of fear, even though most minority-owned banks have a more traditional customer base, with secured loans and minimal risky investments, she said.

    “You’re seeing customer flight of folks that we’ve been serving for a long time,” Elam said. “How many people may not come to us for a mortgage or small business loan or to do their banking business because they now have in their mind that they need to bank with a bank that is too big to fail? That’s the first impact of eroding public trust.”

    Black-owned banks have been hit the hardest as the industry consolidates. Most don’t have as much capital to withstand economic downturns. At its peak, there were 134. Today, there are only 21.

    But change is on the way. Within the last three years, the federal government, private sector and philanthropic community have invested heavily in minority-run depository institutions.

    “In response to this national conversation around racial equity, people are really seeing minority banks are key to wealth creation and key to helping to close the wealth gap,” Elam said.

    Bradley also is an angel investor, providing seed money for a number of entrepreneurs, and is seeing new opportunities as people network in the WhatsApp group to help each other remain afloat and grow.

    “I’m really so hopeful,” Bradley said. “Even in the downfall of SVB, it has managed to form this incredible community of folks that are trying to help each other to succeed. They’re saying, ‘SVB was here for us, now we’re going to be here for each other.’”

    ____ Stafford, based in Detroit, is a national investigative race writer for the AP’s Race and Ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kat__stafford. Savage reported from Chicago and is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • SLU to Host Washington Post Opinions Columnist, Race Card Project Founder Michele Norris on April 4

    SLU to Host Washington Post Opinions Columnist, Race Card Project Founder Michele Norris on April 4

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    Newswise — ST. LOUIS – Renowned journalist and opinion columnist Michele Norris will bring her Race Card Project to Saint Louis University this spring and speak to the SLU community about race in America. The project asks participants to talk about identity in six words.

    “So proud and yet so tired. Those six words describe my experiences, and feelings about my identity,” said Katrina Moore, Ph.D., associate professor of history and associate dean for diversity, equity, inclusion and engagement for the College of Arts and Sciences. “The Race Card Project asks for one sentence, no more than six words, to describe race, culture, and identity. Journalist Michele Norris has started such a simple idea that has the potential to manifest into many dynamic conversations, and with work transform our society.” 

    Norris will give a talk Tuesday, April 4. The event is free and open to the public.

    “SLU is excited to be able to take this simple starting point and open up conversations on campus and throughout the community,” Moore said.  

    Norris is an opinion columnist for the Washington Post and a former host of NPR’s afternoon magazine show, All Things Considered. She also served as a special correspondent for NPR on race and identity in America.

    Before joining NPR, Norris worked at ABC News, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times. She has won Emmy, DuPont, and Livingston awards for her work.

    She has also received a National Dialogue Award for fostering difficult conversations across political and ideological differences.

    The Race Card Project 

    Norris began the Race Card Project in 2010, asking people to share their experiences, questions, hopes and other thoughts about identity using only six words. Those words are then the starting point for conversations about race.

    The project has archived more than 500,000 stories since its founding and is used regularly by schools, businesses, churches and others to foster dialogue and a deeper understanding of racial dynamics within the framework of a large institution.

    The talk is free and open to the public. To ensure a spot at the event, register in advance.

    Event Details

    • When: 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 4.
    • Where: The St. Louis Room (Room 300) in Saint Louis University’s Busch Student Center, 20 North Grand Boulevard, St. Louis, Mo., 63103. 

    The event is sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences, the Department of Communication and the Division of Diversity and Innovative Community Engagement at Saint Louis University.

    Saint Louis University

    Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 13,500 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.

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    Saint Louis University

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  • Study explores how community engagement can help improve clinical trial diversity

    Study explores how community engagement can help improve clinical trial diversity

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    Newswise — COLUMBUS, Ohio – Despite racial and ethnic minority groups making up nearly half of the United States population, underrepresentation in clinical trials remains a critical challenge. In an effort to improve clinical trial diversity, researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine partnered with The African American Male Wellness Agency, Genentech Inc. and Pfizer, Inc. to engage with almost 450 community members in 25 states and five countries to create solutions to barriers of access, awareness, discrimination and racism and workforce diversity.

    Study findings are published online in the journal PLOS One.

    “Equitable representation is key when testing novel therapeutic and non-therapeutic interventions to ensure safety and effectiveness across populations, especially since 20% of new drugs demonstrate differences in exposure and/or response across racial and ethnic groups,” said senior author Dr. Joshua Joseph, assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism and an investigator in the Diabetes & Metabolism Research Center.

    “The lack of Black and Hispanic/Latinx populations in clinical research studies for endocrine conditions including diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease research is particularly troubling because these diseases are common with a high prevalence and mortality in racial and ethnic minority populations,” said co-author Timiya Nolan, assistant professor of nursing and principal investigator of Partners in Negating Statistics in Black Women (PINS).

    During the study in 2021, participants attended two webinars in a four-part series titled “Health Equity Through Diversity: From Communities to Clinics to Clinical Trials.” They discussed solutions for advancing health equity through diversifying clinical trials and addressing medical mistrust in communities.

    Each 90-minute webinar began with panelist discussions followed by breakout rooms where moderators led discussions related to health equity while scribes recorded the conversations. The diverse groups of panelists included community members, civic representatives, clinician-scientists, government organizations and biotechnology/biopharmaceutical professionals. Scribe notes from discussions were collected and thematically analyzed to uncover the central themes.

    “We found that based on these discussions, barriers to clinical trial participation were broadly grouped into the themes of access, awareness, discrimination and racism and workforce diversity. Participants noted that innovative, community-engaged, co-designed solutions are essential,” said first author Luiza Reopell, clinical study coordinator with the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism.

    Within each theme, barriers and solutions to clinical trial participation were identified:

    • Access: Barriers included opportunity cost, transportation, caregiver burden and work. Solutions included transportation vouchers and extending clinic hours.
    • Awareness: Barriers included contact with healthcare system, research literacy, language and health literacy. Solutions included using translators or research ambassadors and educating patients.
    • Racism: Barriers included interpersonal, structural and institutional racism. Solutions included investing in communities and offering training for providers.
    • Workforce Diversity: Barriers included lack of coordination and lack of clinical research coordinator diversity. Solutions included hiring racially and ethnically diverse staff and ensuring cultural competence.

    Study collaborators included researchers at Ohio State’s College of Nursing, College of Public Health; and Center for Clinical and Translational Science; the Center for Cancer Health Equity at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute; the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine; The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing; Franklin University; Hue-Man Partnership and the National Center for Urban Solutions.

    Funding for this study includes the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Genentech, Inc. and Pfizer, Inc. provided financial support for the webinar series. The Center for Primary Care Innovation and Transformation at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State College of Nursing provided logistical and technical support with producing the webinar series.

    # # #

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    Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center

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  • Diversity Training for Police Officers: One-and-Done Efforts Aren’t Enough

    Diversity Training for Police Officers: One-and-Done Efforts Aren’t Enough

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    Newswise — What explains persistent racial disparities in policing, despite police departments’ repeated investments in bias-training programs? A wide range of data indicate that police in the United States tend to stop, arrest, injure, or kill more Black people than White people. Calvin K. Lai (Washington University in St. Louis) and Jaclyn A. Lisnek (University of Virginia) analyzed the effectiveness of a day-long implicit-bias-oriented diversity training session designed to increase U.S. police officers’ knowledge of bias, concerns about bias, and use of evidence-based strategies to mitigate bias. Their findings, recently published in Psychological Science, suggest that “diversity trainings as they are currently practiced are unlikely to change police behavior.” 

    Immediately after these trainings, police officers have strong intentions to use the strategies they’ve learned, explained Lai in a forthcoming interview on Under the Cortex, the APS podcast. But “one month later there wasn’t that kind of follow through.” 

    In 2020 and 2021, Lai and Lisnek evaluated 251 training sessions (in-person or remote) in which 24 different educators taught the Managing Bias program—developed by the Anti-Defamation League to reduce the influence of biases in the behaviors of police officers, improve the relationship between the community and the police, and increase safety—to different police departments with a history of Black–White racial disparities in policing. This day-long training consists of an interactive workshop, led by two educators, that uses activities to educate officers about the origins and differences between explicit and implicit bias, how biases may affect their behavior, and gaps in understanding between police and the community. After learning about biases, officers were trained on strategies and skills to reduce biased behavior.  

    Lai, a recipient of the APS 2023 Janet Taylor Spence Award for Early Career Contributions, and Lisnek surveyed police officers immediately before the training to establish a baseline, assessing knowledge and concern about bias, usage of strategies to manage bias, and characteristics relevant to police training (e.g., centrality of police identity, expectations of respect from community members). A second survey, administered immediately after the training, evaluated knowledge and concern about bias plus the intention to use the strategies to manage bias.  

    Results indicated that before the training, officers showed low understanding of and concern about bias, but the training immediately increased their knowledge and concern about bias. Right after the training, officers reported feeling empowered and motivated to use the strategies they learned to manage bias. However, another survey one month later found that officers’ concerns about bias had returned to pre-intervention levels and their use of these strategies had declined compared with their reported intentions immediately after training. Nevertheless, their general understanding of biases remained as high as immediately after the training. 

    Future research, Lai said, will attempt “to close that gap between officers really being motivated but not finding ways to follow through using some of these bias mitigation strategies.”  

    The researchers also identified characteristics of diversity training that might affect its efficacy. For instance, previous literature has suggested embedding such efforts with other organizational initiatives, having managers reinforce them, and evaluating expected behavior as a part of job performance. The training examined in this study was implemented and administered by an external organization. Adding booster sessions instead of a one-and-done training model could also increase effectiveness, Lai and Lisnek said.  

    Finally, the strategies taught could have had low applicability outside of a lab in real-world policing, another factor that can also undermine training effectiveness. “One of the things we’re finding is that there might not be these great one-size-fits-all solutions for combating bias at work,” said Lai. It may be necessary “to think very concretely and specifically” about the daily work activities where police officers may be inclined to discriminate—and then provide “super-tailored strategies” to mitigate those behaviors. 

    Journalists: email [email protected] for a copy of this research article.

    Reference  

    Lai, C. K., & Lisnek, J. A. (2023). The impact of implicit-bias-oriented diversity training on police officers’ beliefs, motivations, and actions. Psychological Science. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976221150617 

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    Association for Psychological Science

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  • “COVID rebound” is common, even in untreated patients

    “COVID rebound” is common, even in untreated patients

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    Newswise — LA JOLLA, CA—“COVID rebound,” in which evidence of the illness disappears and then returns days or weeks later, is surprisingly common—whether or not patients are given the antiviral Paxlovid.

    The results, reported on February 22 in Clinical Infectious Diseases by scientists at Scripps Research and the digital health company eMed, are a preliminary readout from an ongoing observational study of people who order SARS-CoV-2 antigen test kits online. The researchers found that in an initial group of 170 eMed Test-to-Treat™ kit users, the disappearance and then return of evidence of the virus on antigen tests and in self-reported COVID-19 symptoms occurred in 9.3% and 7.0% of patients who opted not to take antiviral treatment, and in 14.2% and 18.9% of those who opted for Paxlovid.

    Although a higher proportion of the Paxlovid-treated group reported COVID-19 rebound, the difference was not statistically significant in this early snapshot of the ongoing study, which is designed ultimately to enroll a total of 800 patients.

    “These preliminary results suggest that rebound after clearance of SARS-CoV-2 test positivity or COVID-19 symptom resolution is more common than previously reported in both treated and untreated patients,” says study lead author Jay Pandit, MD, an assistant professor and director of Digital Medicine at the Scripps Research Translational Institute. “We’re going to need a larger set of participants and more extended follow-up to better understand this rebound phenomenon.”

    The study, conducted from August to November of last year, was a collaboration with eMed, including epidemiologist and Chief Science Officer Michael Mina, MD, PhD, previously professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and others at the Test-to-Treat company, which is also implementing the NIH Home Test to Treat COVID-19 program.

    Reports of COVID-19 rebound started appearing in the medical literature in 2022. The cause of rebound has been unclear, although the suggestion in most of these reports has been that rebound occurs more often in patients treated with Paxlovid. The latter, a mix of two antiviral compounds (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir), received emergency use approval in late 2021 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treating patients who have mild-to-moderate COVID-19 and are at high risk of developing severe COVID-19.

    To help illuminate the rebound phenomenon and any connection to Paxlovid, Pandit and his colleagues teamed up with eMed to drive a “real-world” study of outcomes among people using the company’s COVID-19 Test-to-Treat antigen test kits with telehealth proctoring and telemedicine.

    “As the COVID-19 landscape continues to evolve, the importance of making timely and effective treatments accessible and thereby helping reduce severe disease outcomes cannot be overstated,” Mina says. “Collaborations such as this with the Scripps Research Translation Institute are a key part of efforts to gather evidence-based data and answer critical questions associated with treatment outcomes. We are also proud that this study not only offers new data surrounding COVID-19 recovery and treatment outcomes, but also highlights the benefits of industry and academic partnerships to accelerate high-quality public health and translational research.”

    The researchers offered Test-to-Treat telehealth kit users participation in the study if they had a verified positive test. If users consented to participate, the researchers sent them more test kits, and asked each participant to take a test and fill out a symptom questionnaire every other day for 16 days. The team then compared the rates of rebound for those who did and didn’t opt to take Paxlovid. Rebound was measured in two ways: a positive test result after a negative test, or a reported recurrence of symptoms after symptom resolution. For this preliminary analysis, there were 127 people in the Paxlovid-treated group, and 43 in the non-Paxlovid group.

    Either way rebounds were measured, the Paxlovid group experienced them at a higher rate: 14.2% vs. 9.3% for antigen test rebounds, and 18.9% vs. 7.0% for symptom rebounds. With the small participant numbers included in this preliminary analysis, these differences were not statistically significant. Moreover, on other measures (such as the time from first positive antigen test to first negative antigen test, and time from symptom onset to first symptom resolution), the two groups had essentially identical outcomes. Age, gender and pre-existing conditions also did not appear to influence rebound.

    Pandit emphasizes that the study is not currently powered to detect statistically significant results, and a final analysis should include up to 800 participants and thus should have much more power to generate conclusive findings. However, he adds, the preliminary findings already make clear that the rebound rates for both treated and untreated groups are higher than the rates reported in prior studies. For example, an analysis of their clinical trial results by Pfizer, the maker of Paxlovid, found rebound rates of only about 2% in both Paxlovid and placebo groups over a two-week period.

    In addition to increasing the number of participants in their ongoing study, Pandit and colleagues plan to start sequencing the virus found in participants and testing participants’ blood samples for antibody levels and other immune markers.

    “We’re hoping to answer key questions about the rebound phenomenon, such as whether it’s enhanced by Paxlovid, how much it depends on the viral variant and what is the role of the patient’s immune system,” Pandit says.

    He and his team also plan to improve the balance of ethnic and racial representation between the treatment and control groups: In the initial group of 170, Whites were much more likely than Blacks and Latinos to opt for Paxlovid treatment.

    “The COVID-19 Rebound Study: A Prospective Cohort Study to Evaluate Viral and Symptom Rebound Differences in Participants Treated with Nirmatrelvir Plus Ritonavir Versus Untreated Controls” was co-authored by Jay Pandit, Jennifer Radin, Danielle Chiang, Emily Spencer, Jeff Pawelek, Mira Diwan, Leila Roumani and Michael Mina.

    Support for the study was provided by eMed, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (3U01AI151812-03S2), and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS UL1 TR002550).

    About Scripps Research

    Scripps Research is an independent, nonprofit biomedical institute ranked one of the most influential in the world for its impact on innovation by Nature Index. We are advancing human health through profound discoveries that address pressing medical concerns around the globe. Our drug discovery and development division, Calibr, works hand-in-hand with scientists across disciplines to bring new medicines to patients as quickly and efficiently as possible, while teams at Scripps Research Translational Institute harness genomics, digital medicine and cutting-edge informatics to understand individual health and render more effective healthcare. Scripps Research also trains the next generation of leading scientists at our Skaggs Graduate School, consistently named among the top 10 US programs for chemistry and biological sciences. Learn more at www.scripps.edu.

    About eMed

    eMed® is a leader in proctored at-home health diagnostics, using digital technology to bring affordable diagnostic testing, medical screening, and treatment for the most common ailments. With more than 3.7 million customers since its fall 2020 launch, eMed has proven effective and reliable. eMed® Telehealth Kits™ make it easy for consumers to test and screen at home with the guidance of trained Telehealth Proctors and access prescriptions at no additional cost—reducing the time to initiate treatment and improving access to care. The company is revolutionizing the healthcare industry with the first-of-its-kind at-home Test-to-Treat™ solution, an innovative, efficient, and cost-effective way for consumers to have more control over their healthcare at home. Learn more at www.eMed.com.

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  • Einstein Appoints Reginald Hayes as Assistant Dean for Diversity Engagement

    Einstein Appoints Reginald Hayes as Assistant Dean for Diversity Engagement

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    Newswise — February 24, 2023—BRONX, NY—Albert Einstein College of Medicine has named Reginald Leon Hayes, B.S., B.Mus., M.Div., the assistant dean for diversity enhancement. In this role, Mr. Hayes will focus on promoting diversity, equity, and engagement for current and prospective medical students and those in Einstein’s pathway programs. Mr. Hayes began his new role in late January.

    “We look forward to supporting Mr. Hayes as he works to advance greater diversity, equity, and inclusion at Einstein,” said Gordon F. Tomaselli, M.D., the Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean at Einstein and executive vice president and chief academic officer at Montefiore Medicine.  “His appointment demonstrates our clear commitment to the principles championed by our namesake, which have been deeply held by the College of Medicine since its founding.”

    “Mr. Hayes has a wealth of experience that will help us fulfill the goals of our office,” said Lynne Holden, M.D., senior associate dean for diversity & inclusion and professor of emergency medicine at Einstein and an attending physician in the emergency department at Montefiore Health System. “His leadership in building a more equitable workforce and his personal involvement with global health will bring valuable insight, understanding, and knowledge to this critically important position. We are very pleased he is able to join us.”

    Mr. Hayes’ responsibilities will include bolstering Einstein’s pathway program consortium, recruiting diverse medical students, and creating an inclusive environment for Einstein community members.

    “It is both an honor and privilege to be back in the Bronx and to join the Einstein community,” said Mr. Hayes, who previously lived and served in a church in the Bronx and participated in a community outreach program in the borough. “I look forward to opportunities to discuss how we can engage everyone on campus and foster an inclusive and peaceable environment for our learners while advancing the mission of the College of Medicine, both in the Bronx and beyond.”

    Mr. Hayes worked most recently at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), in Washington, DC, as an associate program officer for the Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine. This group convenes to discuss systemic issues and historic barriers to Blacks pursuing careers in SEM while sharing promising practices for increasing representation, retention, and inclusiveness.

    Before joining the roundtable, he worked as an implementation partner for the United States Agency for International Development’s Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research program, focusing on cervical cancer and the high mortality rates for women in Malawi and Mozambique. In addition to these roles at NASEM, he was one of the original members of the diversity, equity and inclusion working group prior to the formal launch of the initiative at the institution.

    Mr. Hayes also served as a research analyst for diversity in clinical trials at the National Cancer Institute, where he worked with principal investigator Ted Trimble, M.D., M.P.H., researching methods to combat medical and science mistrust among historically disadvantaged populations and increase diversity in clinical trials conducted in the U.S.

    Mr. Hayes, a native of Washington, DC, was a biology and environmental science teacher in the District of Columbia public school system and in mission schools in Brazil and the Philippines. A classically trained tenor, Mr. Hayes has performed many roles including Tamino in The Magic Flute, King Kaspar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Don Ottavio from Don Giovanni, and has appeared as tenor soloist for oratorios such as the Bach Mass in B minor, Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio, Handel’s Messiah, Berlioz’s Te Deum and numerous other works.

    Mr. Hayes earned his bachelor’s degrees from Shaw University (in biology) and from Nyack College (in vocal performance), and a master’s in divinity from the Alliance Theological Seminary. This May, he will receive a master’s in business administration from Western Governors University. He is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Association of Black Male Educators.

    ***

    About Albert Einstein College of Medicine
    Albert Einstein College of Medicine is one of the nation’s premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2022-23 academic year, Einstein is home to 740 M.D. students, 194 Ph.D. students, 118 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and approximately 225 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has more than 1,900 full-time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2022, Einstein received more than $202 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in cancer, aging, intellectual development disorders, diabetes, clinical and translational research, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. For more information, please visit einsteinmed.edu, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and view us on YouTube. 

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  • Black patients wait longer for uterine cancer testing, diagnosis

    Black patients wait longer for uterine cancer testing, diagnosis

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    Newswise — Early diagnosis of uterine cancer is known to improve a patient’s chances for survival, but previous research has found that Black patients are less likely to receive early diagnoses than people of other racial and ethnic groups. A new analysis by Yale researchers provides insights into why that is: They found that Black patients were more likely than their white counterparts to experience testing delays or to not receive recommended tests at all.

    The findings were published Feb. 15 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

    At what stage a patient is diagnosed with uterine cancer has a major impact on how well that patient will fare. When diagnosed while the cancer is still confined to the uterus, nearly 95% of patients will survive the next five years. But that rate drops to less than 70% once the cancer has spread to areas or lymph nodes nearby and plummets to around 18% once the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.

    “Early diagnosis is important,” said Xiao Xu, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine, member of Yale Cancer Center, and lead author of the study. “We don’t know why there’s a racial disparity in early diagnosis and until we do, it’s hard to address it.”

    To determine whether differences in the diagnosis process contribute to this disparity, Xu and her colleagues used the MarketScan Multi-State Medicaid Database, which has deidentified data from more than 44 million Medicaid patients across the United States.

    For their analysis, they included adult patients who had reported abnormal uterine bleeding to their health care providers and later received a diagnosis of uterine cancer. Abnormal uterine bleeding is the most common symptom of uterine cancer, Xu said, and can present as light spotting or heavier bleeding at unexpected times.

    The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommends several procedures to evaluate the cause of abnormal uterine bleeding, such as endometrial biopsy, transvaginal/pelvic ultrasound, and hysteroscopy, in which a physician examines the inside of the cervix and uterus with a small, telescope-like device. In the new study, researchers found that more than twice as many Black patients than white patients did not receive any of these procedures (10.1% of Black patients versus 5% of white patients).

    Further, of the patients who did receive procedures, Black patients were more likely than white patients to experience a delay of more than two months in receiving their first diagnostic procedure following their report of abnormal uterine bleeding.

    Ultimately, Black patients were more likely than white patients to experience a delay in receiving their cancer diagnosis. The researchers found that 11.3% of Black patients who’d reported abnormal uterine bleeding waited more than a year to receive a uterine cancer diagnosis, compared with 8.3% of white patients.

    “Overall, we found a pretty consistent difference in the quality of care received by Black and white patients,” said Xu.

    To better understand the driving factors behind this difference in care and how best to address them, Xu and her colleagues are evaluating additional sets of data to determine whether Black patients might experience barriers to accessing specialist care, if more education about the symptoms of uterine cancer may be beneficial for patients, and whether delays in diagnoses result in patients being diagnosed at later stages of cancer. They are also studying whether these findings among Medicaid patients are similarly seen in other patient populations.

    “The goal,” said Xu, “is for every patient to receive high-quality care.”

    Other authors include Marcella Nunez-Smith and Mitchell Clark from Yale School of Medicine and Ling Chen and Jason Wright from Columbia University.

    The research was supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

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  • Bears buy property for potential Arlington Heights stadium

    Bears buy property for potential Arlington Heights stadium

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    ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. — The Chicago Bears on Wednesday bought the property that they’ve been sizing up for a new enclosed stadium in suburban Arlington Heights.

    The Bears announced that they paid $197.2 million for the 326-acre plot.

    The team cautioned, however, that the purchase doesn’t mean plans for a new stadium and an entertainment district will come to fruition.

    “There is still a tremendous amount of due diligence work to be done to determine if constructing an enclosed state-of-the-art stadium and multi-purpose entertainment district is feasible,” the Bears said in a statement.

    Soldier Field on Chicago’s lakefront has been the Bears’ home since 1971. The team played at Wrigley Field from 1921 to 1970, and if a new stadium is constructed, the franchise would have its name on the mortgage for the first time since arriving in Chicago.

    Economic analysts have said building a Bears entertainment district would create more than 48,000 jobs and generate $9.4 billion for the local economy.

    “The Bears will continue to work closely alongside the Village of Arlington Heights, surrounding municipalities and their residents to solicit extensive feedback on how we can best benefit local communities and Bears fans across Illinois,” the statement said. “This planning will include a robust diversity, equity and inclusion program that prioritizes local hiring throughout every stage of the development.”

    The Bears envision restaurants, retail and more on the site of the shuttered Arlington International Racecourse some 30 miles northwest of Soldier Field — all for about $5 billion, with some taxpayer help.

    The Bears plan to pay for their stadium, but want taxpayer dollars to cover infrastructure costs such as roads and sewers.

    The city of Chicago proposed last summer enclosing Soldier Field and increasing its capacity from a league-low 61,500. But the Bears have insisted the only possibilities they were considering were for the Arlington Heights site.

    It will be up to new president and CEO Kevin Warren to help the Bears’ vision for a new home become a reality. He was hired last month after spending three years as commissioner of the Big Ten.

    Warren, who’s replacing the retiring Ted Phillips, worked in the NFL for more than two decades. He was part of Minnesota’s front office from 2005-19, ascending to chief operating officer in 2015, and played a big role in the Vikings’ construction of U.S. Bank Stadium.

    The Bears see that stadium, which opened in 2016, as a model for their potential new home, with its translucent roof and massive glass panels letting in enough light and air to make fans feel as if they’re outdoors.

    ___

    AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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  • Strengthening ecology and conservation in the Global South

    Strengthening ecology and conservation in the Global South

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    Newswise — The tropics hold most of the planet’s biodiversity. In order to preserve this fragile and valuable asset, many individuals and communities need to get involved and be well informed. However, tropical ecology and conservation sciences are still often affected by colonialistic and discriminatory practices, which can hamper nature conservation success. An international research team from leading universities in tropical research, including the University of Göttingen, has now proposed how researchers from the Global South, which consists of nations historically damaged by colonialism, could better promote solutions for a sustainable development. Their opinion paper was published in the journal Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation.

    The team of researchers from over 12 countries – across South America, Africa, Asia, Europe and North America – gathered their experiences working in international collaborations in the field of terrestrial and marine tropical ecology and conservation, and participating in committees promoting the diversification of scientific societies. They suggest ten actions for researchers living in the Global South to promote improvements in diversity, equity and inclusion. These include actions at institutional, national and international levels to guarantee that research teams in the Global South become more inclusive and diverse and are well prepared for equitable international research collaborations that have an impact on nature conservation practices.

    The authors believe that current teams in tropical research often do not fully consider the vast diversity of people and perspectives in tropical regions, which hinders the implementation of scientific practices. However, they recognize the high initial costs associated with establishing schemes for equitable participation: “These actions require hard work and self-reflection from all of us about our actions and attitudes, but we are confident that the benefits are considerable, both for the quality of the science that we do, and the protection of tropical ecosystems,” says lead author Carolina Ocampo-Ariza, Agroecology Group, University of Göttingen.

    Successful conservation actions rely on the participation of local stakeholders, including local governments and communities in rural areas. “We hope to encourage more leadership from those that live surrounded by tropical biodiversity,” says Professor Teja Tscharntke, University of Göttingen. This includes researchers in the Global South increasing outreach and dissemination in research projects, co-developing research goals with local stakeholders such as indigenous communities and local farmers, and taking a leading role in international research teams.

    “The ongoing international discussions about diversity, equity and inclusion will hopefully help us establish more sustainable and fair collaborations in research,” adds Isabelle Arimond, Functional Agrobiodiversity, University of Göttingen.

     

    Original publication: Ocampo-Ariza C et al, “Global South leadership towards inclusive tropical ecology and conservation”, Perspectives in Ecology and conservation: DOI: 10.1016/j.pecon.2023.01.002

    The abstract of the manuscript is available via PDF in 18 languages spoken in the Global South: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2530064423000020#sec0090

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  • Schools become flashpoint for Republicans eyeing White House

    Schools become flashpoint for Republicans eyeing White House

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has called for parents to elect and fire school principals. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has banned instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. And Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador who is expected to announce her White House candidacy this coming week, is among the Republicans taking aim at critical race theory.

    In the opening stages of the 2024 GOP presidential race, the “parents’ rights” movement and lessons for schoolchildren are emerging as flashpoints.

    The focus on issues related to racism, sexuality and education is a way for potential White House hopefuls to distinguish themselves in a crowded field, suggesting new and deeper ways for government to shape what happens in local classrooms.

    But the effort has prompted criticism from LGBTQ advocacy groups, teachers’ unions, some parents and student activists and those worried about efforts to avoid lessons about systemic racism. Democrats have cast the efforts as race-baiting and improperly injecting politics into schools.

    “What we’re seeing now, at least in this period, is much more focus on so-called ‘culture war’ issues,” said Jeffrey Henig, a professor of political science and education at Columbia University’s Teachers’ College.

    Nowhere is the drive more visible than in Florida, where DeSantis has made an aggressive push against what he calls “woke” policies.

    He gained national attention last year for signing the so-called Don’t Say Gay bill into law, barring instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity for young elementary schoolers, as well as material deemed not age-appropriate, which critics have argued is vague and could stifle classroom discussions. He also signed the “Stop WOKE” act in 2022, a law that restricted teaching that members of one race are inherently racist or should feel guilt about past actions by other people of the same race, among other things.

    DeSantis has also extended his political influence to local school board races, endorsing candidates last year in what had been nonpartisan contests and flipping at least three boards from a liberal majority to a conservative majority.

    More recently, he blocked high schools from teaching a new Advanced Placement course on African American studies, contending it was a violation of a state law and historically inaccurate. Beyond K-12 schools, he appointed six conservative trustees to the board of a small liberal arts college and he has announced plans to restrict state colleges from having programs on diversity, equity and inclusion, and critical race theory.

    Critical race theory, a way of thinking about America’s history through the lens of racism, has been a top target. The theory, which DeSantis has called “pernicious,” was developed by scholars in the 1970s and 1980s in response to what they viewed as a lack of racial progress following the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. It centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions, which function to maintain the dominance of white people in society.

    As DeSantis emerges as the most formidable potential challenger to Trump, who has staked out his own positions on the same issues and recently released a nearly 5-minute video outlining what his campaign called a “Plan to Save American Education and Give Power Back to Parents.”

    Declaring that “public schools have been taken over by the radical left maniacs,” and warning about “pink-haired communists teaching our kids,” Trump pledged, if elected president again, that he would cut federal money for any school or program promoting “critical race theory, gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on to our children.”

    Trump said he planned to create a national credentialing organization that would certify teachers “who embrace patriotic values, support our way of life and understand that their job is not to indoctrinate children” and would set up favorable treatment for states and school districts that adopt reforms such as allowing parents to directly elect school principals.

    “If any principal is not getting the job done, the parents should have the right and be able to vote or to fire them and to select someone else that will do the job properly,” Trump said at a campaign appearance in South Carolina.

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is considering a presidential campaign, is using a group he formed to rally conservatives against transgender-affirming policies in schools. The group’s plans to run ads, hold rallies and canvass in early voting state Iowa comes as a federal appeals court is set to consider a case involving an Iowa school district’s policy to support transgender students.

    In the U.S., public education is run by states and largely paid for by state and local taxpayers. The federal government does not, for instance, certify teachers or regulate how schools hire staff. And Washington also doesn’t control curriculum standards like those DeSantis has backed in Florida. But Congress or the Department of Education can incentivize certain education practices by tying them to federal money.

    So it’s not unheard of for presidential candidates to talk about education.

    George H.W. Bush declared he wanted to be known as the “education president” and started a push for national standards and goals. His son, George W. Bush, centered his message in the 2000 campaign in part on education reform and during the first year of his administration, signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act, which ignited a national debate over the proper use of standardized testing in schools.

    The more recent divisive shift to social issues in schools is an outgrowth of Glenn Youngkin’s successful bid in 2021 to become the first Republican in more than a decade to be elected as Virginia’s governor. Youngkin, himself a potential presidential candidate in 2024, campaigned on parental rights. He appealed to parents frustrated over school closures during the pandemic and said he would ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools.

    Once in office, his administration began the process of rewriting the state’s model policies for the treatment of transgender students, issuing guidance for school divisions that would roll back some accommodations and tighten parental notification requirements.

    Kristin Davison, a strategist for Youngkin’s gubernatorial campaign, said Youngkin focused on education after the pandemic thrust parents into the classroom, leading to frustrations with remote learning to the curriculum itself.

    “Voters want their leaders to understand the issues that they’re talking about at their kitchen table,” she said. “Right now, families are sitting at their kitchen table looking at report cards, looking at homework assignments, frustrated at curriculum.”

    The debate over education still carried weight during last year’s elections, potentially giving Republican presidential candidates a reason to stay focused on the issue. Half of voters in 2022 said their local K-8 schools were teaching too much about gender identity issues, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate. Only about one-quarter said schools teach too little on the subject.

    About 4 in 10 voters said too little is taught on racism in the U.S., while about one-third said schools were teaching too much on related issues. Roughly one-quarter of voters said the focus on each is “about right.”

    There was broad agreement among Republicans — about 8 in 10 of whom said gender identity is taught too much in schools. A smaller majority, 56%, said that about racism.

    Among Democrats, about two-thirds said there’s too little taught about racism. But there was less consensus around teaching gender identity. About 4 in 10 said too little is taught, about 2 in 10 said too much is taught and about 4 in 10 said schools handle it about right.

    Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster and strategist who worked on President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, said the GOP messages about protecting children seem to be aimed at trying to win over suburban women, who have drifted away from Trump and the GOP, particularly after the Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion last year.

    “I think it’s getting extra energy because of its appeal or its presumed appeal to women voters,” she said.

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  • Stella Jean quits Milan Fashion Week over lack of inclusion

    Stella Jean quits Milan Fashion Week over lack of inclusion

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    MILAN — The only Black designer belonging to Italy’s fashion council is withdrawing from this month’s Milan Fashion Week citing a lack of commitment to diversity and inclusion, and on Wednesday announced a hunger strike out of concern that other minority designers associated with her will suffer a backlash.

    Stella Jean told The Associated Press that the Italian National Fashion Chamber had significantly cut back support for the We Are Made in Italy collective of young designers of color working in Italy after she made an impassioned speech about the personal price she had paid for highlighting racial injustice in Italy during a runway show last September.

    Along with Stella Jean, the WAMI collective is withdrawing from fashion week, which they were to open with a digital presentation.

    Italian Fashion Chamber President Carlo Capasa told the AP that he regretted Stella Jean’s decision, adding that the final fashion week calendar being presented Wednesday is “full of diversity.”

    “In the calendar that we are presenting today, you will see all that we are doing for people of color who are working in Italy,” Capasa told the AP. A news conference was scheduled for later Wednesday.

    Jean sent a letter to Capasa informing him of her hunger strike, which she said would be revoked only with his written assurance that no professional harm would come to the WAMI designers and supports “as a result of our history of misunderstanding.”

    “This admittedly extreme measure of mine stems from having heard several voices from the collective worried about ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ repercussions, including difficulty in securing funding and services from sponsors and partners, given the power wielded by you as president of the chamber in the industry,’’ she wrote in a letter obtained by the AP.

    Capasa said he hadn’t yet read the letter and was unaware of the hunger strike and WAMI’s withdrawal. Both Stella Jean and WAMI appeared on a draft of the Milan Fashion Week calendar of mostly womenswear previews for next winter released last month.

    WAMI was launched on the heels of the Black Lives Matters movement in 2020 by Jean, African-American designer Edward Buchanan and the head of Afro Fashion Week Milano, Michelle Ngonmo, to draw attention to the lack of minority representation in the Italian fashion world. It followed some racial gaffes by major fashion houses that made global headlines.

    Ngonmo told the AP that financial support for the project from the chamber had dwindled over the three years it has run so far, and that Afro Fashion Week Milano wasn’t able to come up with the 20,000 euros ($21,000) it would have cost to support the five young designers in making solid looks to present, plus a video.

    The Italian fashion chamber fully supported the collections for the two WAMI classes, each with five designers, but that the third generation hasn’t received any funding from the chamber, Ngonmo and Jean said. The September show featuring Jean, Buchanan and WAMI was financed through other allies and their own contributions.

    “Maybe the message is the whole industry needs to open their eyes and say what can we do to make that happen?” Ngonmo told the AP.

    A WAMI designer, Joy Meribe, opened Milan Fashion Week previews for spring-summer 2022, in a major milestone for the movement.

    But Jean said that such moves had turned out to be “performative.”

    “They used WAMI as a free pass of safe conduct for diversity,’’ Jean told the AP. She said she was withdrawing out of fatigue with the “continual fight” for recognition for designers of color in Italy.

    “I am a fighter by nature, but I cannot be this way all the time,” she said.

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  • Life in a violent country can be years shorter and much less predictable – even for those not involved in conflict

    Life in a violent country can be years shorter and much less predictable – even for those not involved in conflict

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    Newswise — How long people live is less predictable and life expectancy for young people can be as much as 14 years shorter in violent countries compared to peaceful countries, according to a new study today [3/2] from an international team, led by Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science. It reveals a direct link between the uncertainty of living in a violent setting, even for those not directly involved in the violence, and a ‘double burden’ of shorter and less predictable lives.

    According to the research, violent deaths are responsible for a high proportion of the differences in lifetime uncertainty between violent and peaceful countries. But, the study says, ‘The impact of violence on mortality goes beyond cutting lives short. When lives are routinely lost to violence, those left behind face uncertainty as to who will be next.’

    Lead author Dr José Manuel Aburto from Oxford’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, adds, ‘What we found most striking is that lifetime uncertainty has a greater association with violence than life expectancy. Lifetime uncertainty, therefore, should not be overlooked when analysing changes in mortality patterns.’

    Using mortality data from 162 countries, and the Internal Peace Index between 2008-2017, the study shows the most violent countries are also those with the highest lifetime uncertainty. In the Middle East, conflict-related deaths at young ages are the biggest contributor to this, while in Latin America, a similar pattern results from homicides and interpersonal violence.

    But lifetime uncertainty was ‘remarkably low’ between 2008-2017, in most Northern and Southern European countries. Although Europe has been the most peaceful region over the period, the Russian invasion of Ukraine will impact this.

    In high-income countries, reduced cancer mortality has recently helped to reduce lifetime uncertainty. But, in the most violent societies, lifetime uncertainty is even experienced by those not directly involved in violence. The report states, ‘Poverty-insecurity-violence cycles magnify pre-existing structural patterns of disadvantage for women and fundamental imbalances in gender relations at young ages. In some Latin American countries, female homicides have increased over the last decades and exposure to violent environments brings health and social burdens, particularly for children and women.’

    Study co-author Professor Ridhi Kashyap, from the Leverhulme Centre, says, ‘Whilst men are the major direct victims of violence, women are more likely to experience non-fatal consequences in violent contexts. These indirect effects of violence should not be ignored as they fuel gender inequalities, and can trigger other forms of vulnerability and causes of death.’

    According to the report, lower life expectancy is usually associated with greater lifetime uncertainty. In addition, living in a violent society creates vulnerability and uncertainty – and that, in turn, can lead to more violent behaviour. 

    Countries with high levels of violence experience lower levels of life expectancy than more peaceful ones, ‘We estimate a gap of around 14 years in remaining life expectancy at age 10 between the least and most violent countries…In El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Colombia the gap in life expectancy with high income countries is predominantly explained by excess mortality due to homicides.’

    Study co-author Vanessa di Lego, from the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, adds, ‘It is striking how violence alone is a major driver of disparities in lifetime uncertainty. One thing is for certain, global violence is a public health crisis, with tremendous implications for population health, and should not be taken lightly.’

     

    About the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science

    This major new interdisciplinary research centre, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and directed by Professor Melinda Mills, is tackling the most challenging demographic problems of our time. Based at the University of Oxford, the Centre is at the forefront of demographic research that impacts academia, society and policy. Together with academic and industry partners, our researchers use new types of data, methods and unconventional approaches to disrupt conventional thinking across important issues such as COVID-19, climate change, and life expectancy. More information on the Centre can be found here.

    About the University of Oxford

    Oxford University has been placed number one in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the seventh year running, and ​number two in the QS World Rankings 2022. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer.

    Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.

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  • Commonly used police diversity training unlikely to change officers’ behavior, study finds

    Commonly used police diversity training unlikely to change officers’ behavior, study finds

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    Newswise — Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who died after a confrontation with police during a traffic stop earlier this month in Memphis, has become the latest face in a racial justice and police reform movement fueled by a string of similar cases in which Black men have died from injuries sustained while being taken into custody.

    While these cases have spurred calls for greater law enforcement investment in diversity training, new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests that the day-long implicit bias-oriented training programs now common in most U.S. police departments are unlikely to reduce racial inequity in policing.

    “Our findings suggest that diversity training as it is currently practiced is unlikely to change police behavior,” said study lead author Calvin Lai, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

    “Officers who took the training were more knowledgeable about bias and more motivated to address bias at work,” Lai said.” However, these effects were fleeting and appear to have little influence on actual policing behaviors just one month after the training session.”

    Published Feb. 3 in the journal Psychological Science, the study evaluates the experiences of 3,764 police officers from departments across the nation who participated in one-day bias training sessions provided by the non-profit Anti-Defamation League.

    The interactive workshops, which emphasize discussion and active learning over lecturing, were designed to help officers understand how their worldview is shaped by their identity and culture and to appreciate how these biases may affect their behavior.

    Lai’s evaluation of the program, which covered 251 training sessions held between July 2019 and January 2022, is based on police officers’ self-reported responses to surveys conducted before training, immediately after training and one month later.

    When officers were asked to describe their thoughts about the training, many reported that it was surprising and insightful. For instance, one officer wrote “it has opened my eyes to the bias we all have as human beings” and another said, “I really liked the course because it opened my eyes to implicit biases I never knew I had.”

    Officers participating in the study had an average of 15 years of service and most had been with their departments for more than five years. Most were below the rank of sergeant, 77% were male and 79% held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Among those who reported their race, 47% were white, 20% were Black, 27% were Hispanic/Latino and 2% were Asian.

    The final section of the training program focused on building skills to manage bias in policing. These strategies included mindfulness, such as intentionally bringing bias awareness to the present moment, and other interventions designed to help officers avoid perceptions based on negative stereotypes and see people as unique individuals with their own points of view.

    While the training produced an immediate and long-lasting understanding of bias, it delivered only a temporary bump in concerns about bias and in the motivation to use strategies to limit bias in law enforcement interactions.

    “Educating about implicit bias was effective for durably raising awareness about the existence of subtle or implicit biases, but little else,” Lai said. “Our study indicates that the current generation of diversity training programs are effective at changing minds but less consistent at changing behavior.”

    Lai, who is currently working with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services to develop a new managing bias training course for law enforcement agencies, says it’s important to manage expectations about what can be accomplished in a single, standalone training session.

    His study documents shortcomings in the Anti-Defamation League’s Managing Bias program, which he considers to be one of the nation’s best available diversity training programs. The program is research-based, comes with an 80-page instruction manual and is delivered by two-person teams of highly trained facilitators.

    “The day-long training is more intensive than other diversity trainings, which are often only one to three hours,” Lai said. “And yet, we found little evidence for long-term efficacy.”

    Lai’s research suggests that police departments can boost the effectiveness of diversity training by showing a genuine, long-term commitment to program goals and ensuring that classroom bias training lessons are embedded with other organizational initiatives, reinforced by police managers and evaluated as a part of job performance.

    “Changing minds is hard, creating social change is difficult, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing,” Lai said. “We have to eliminate this all-or-none thinking about the effectiveness of implicit bias training and focus on specific changes that police departments can implement to make a real difference in outcomes.”

    This study was supported by grants from the Anti-Defamation League and the Russell Sage Foundation. Co-authors include Jacklyn Lisnek, a former lab manager in Lai’s lab now pursuing a doctoral degree in social psychology at the University of Virginia.

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  • Historically Black TSU hopes for Grammy with gospel album

    Historically Black TSU hopes for Grammy with gospel album

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    By TRAVIS LOLLER

    January 26, 2023 GMT

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Like a lot of great projects, the idea for Grammy-nominated album “The Urban Hymnal” was first sketched out on a paper restaurant napkin.

    Gospel songwriter and producer Sir the Baptist had come to Nashville in October 2021 to hear Tennessee State University’s Aristocrat of Bands perform during homecoming at the invitation of assistant band director Larry Jenkins.

    Baptist “fell in love with the band” at the historically Black university. Later that night, over tacos and pollo enquesado, the two preachers’ kids bonded as they discussed a collaboration.

    “I was fighting for gospel, and he was fighting for marching band. Right?” Baptist recalled in an interview. “And what all HBCUs have in common is this connection to their roots, which is gospel, right?

    “We said, ‘OK. You know what? This is an essential for our culture. Let’s do it.’”

    The record’s nomination for best roots gospel album marks the first time a college marching band has been nominated in that category. It is especially significant that the honor goes to an HBCU — a historically Black college or university — where marching bands are often an essential part of the schools’ identities and culture.

    Tammy Kernodle, a distinguished professor of music at Miami University who specializes in African American music, understands the importance of marching bands at HBCUs from personal experience.

    At Virginia State University, an HBCU where she earned her undergraduate degree, the marching band was “the epicenter of student life, especially during football season,” she said. “You went to the game not so much to see the football team as to see the band,” and the halftime show was “the moment where everything stopped.”

    Even when there weren’t games, the drumline or horn sections practicing in the evenings formed the soundscape of university life, Kernodle said.

    In the culture at large, often HBCU bands are thought of primarily for “the pageantry, the high-stepping style, the dance style,” Kernodle said. But this album “reminds us that a major part of that aesthetic, and what helps define the essence and the uniqueness of that aesthetic, is what these bands play — the musicianship, the range of repertory that they mine, and how they bring a full scope of Black music history to those performances.”

    While the instrumental musicians on the album are from TSU, the vocalists include an all-star ensemble of chart-topping gospel singers like Donald Lawrence and Fred Hammond. Together, they perform a range of songs and styles — from a simple instrumental version of “Jesus Loves Me,” to the R&B-inflected “Blessings on Blessings,” to the inspirational pop ballad “Going Going,” with soaring vocals by Kierra Sheard and accompanying melodic rap from TSU alum Dubba-AA.

    Some songs are new arrangements of classic hymns. Others were written especially for the album, like “Dance Revival,” which features a foot-stomping, hand-clapping backbeat behind the electrifying voice of Jekalyn Carr. But even that new song finishes with a segue into the old spiritual “Wade in the Water.”

    The offerings are so diverse that Baptist, who is himself a voting Grammy member, was concerned the album wouldn’t be accepted in the roots gospel category. Asked how they chose the songs, Baptist and Jenkins said they wanted the album to tell a story about Black history.

    “These hymnals brought us from slavery to the White House,” Baptist said, noting that many Black leaders have also been preachers, like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

    “Even to go from a band perspective,” Jenkins added, “in all of our HBCU bands, I promise you, you can go to any game, every HBCU band has a version of ‘I’m So Glad’” — a Christian hymn with the lyrics, “I’m so glad Jesus lifted me.”

    “At TSU, we take it a step further. ‘I’m So Glad’ is literally the fight song,” Jenkins said (The lyrics are tweaked to “I’m so glad I go to TSU”). “So many of these things are infused into the culture.”

    Appropriately, it’s the song that leads off the album.

    The duo also wanted “The Urban Hymnal” to speak to the young students, some of whom are not Christian or were not raised in the gospel tradition.

    “I think it’s amazing that we were able to bring rapping to the roots of gospel,” Baptist said. “Because in order to make this more urban, we had to connect it to the students. And if we couldn’t connect it to the students, I don’t think the story would have aligned as perfectly.”

    One of those students is 21-year-old senior Logyn Rylander, who said she almost cried when she first heard the album. She loves the way it blends old and new while staying true to the spirit and culture of TSU, where she is a music business major and saxophonist in the Aristocrat of Bands.

    “Staying original, staying true to yourself: If I’m being fully honest, that’s what being an Aristocrat is about,” Rylander said. “We don’t ever switch up what we’re doing because we see another school doing it. We always stay true to who we are. And that’s something the album has allowed us to represent on a global scale.”

    Rylander hopes for a Grammy win when the awards are announced on Feb. 5 but said she was “ecstatic” just to be nominated along with her fellow musicians.

    “Even if we don’t win that Grammy, we know people saw what we can do,” she said. “I look forward to seeing what opportunities come knocking at our door. … Grammy or not, we’re still going to be the Aristocrats at the end of the day.”

    ___

    For more coverage of the upcoming Grammy Awards, visit https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.

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  • Tulane race scholar available for comment in Tyre Nichols case

    Tulane race scholar available for comment in Tyre Nichols case

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    Newswise — Andrea Boyles is an associate professor of sociology and Africana studies at Tulane University and the author of two books — You Can’t Stop the Revolution: Community Disorder and Social Ties in Post-Ferguson America (UC Press 2019) and Race, Place, and Suburban Policing: Too Close for Comfort (UC Press 2015).

    She is a criminologist, race scholar and ethnographer who is especially knowledgeable on Black citizen-police conflict, neighborhood disorder and disadvantage, and police aggression.

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    Tulane University

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  • Crime expert: Mass shootings show Asian Americans’ vulnerability to inter- and intra-racial violence

    Crime expert: Mass shootings show Asian Americans’ vulnerability to inter- and intra-racial violence

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    University of Delaware professor Ivan Sun can comment on the recent mass shootings in California, including the Jan. 21 attack that took the lives of 11 people and left Asian American communities reeling just as they were celebrating the start of the Lunar New Year. 

    Sun, who studies crime and justice in Asian societies, said the following about the shootings:

    – “They are shocking as Asian Americans’ involvement in violent offending is low – whereas their victimization is high, particularly during the pandemic – and seniors in general are less likely to engage in violent crime.”

    – “They are exceptional events, signaling Asian Americans’ vulnerability to both inter- and intra-racial violence.”

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  • De Casa en Casa program reducing the burden of cervical cancer by facilitating early diagnosis and access to treatment.

    De Casa en Casa program reducing the burden of cervical cancer by facilitating early diagnosis and access to treatment.

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    Regular pap tests and HPV testing can prevent and often catch cases of cervical cancer.

    Each year, approximately 13,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and about 4,000 women die from cervical cancer in the US. Sixty percent of cervical cancers occur in resource- poor communities.

    In Texas, Hispanic women have a higher incidence (15.1 per 100,000 women, compared to 8.1 per 100,000 among white women) and are 1.9 times more likely to die from the disease.

    Hispanic women residing on the US-Mexico border have even higher cervical cancer incidence rates, a high late-diagnosis rate, and one of the highest mortality rates in the US.

    Screening rates among Hispanic women along the border are suboptimal.

    At Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso, the De Casa En Casa program is reducing the burden of cervical cancer by facilitating early diagnosis and access to treatment. The program offers educational sessions, no-cost cancer screenings, and diagnostic testing. The program covers 105 West Texas counties, including El Paso and Hudspeth counties.

    Our expert is available to speak on the topic of education and prevention of cervical cancer. 

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  • Across the US, white neighborhoods have more greenery, fewer dilapidated buildings, fewer multi-family homes

    Across the US, white neighborhoods have more greenery, fewer dilapidated buildings, fewer multi-family homes

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    Newswise — Historic redlining and other racist policies have led to present-day racial and economic segregation and disinvestment in many cities across the United States. Research has shown how neighborhood characteristics and resources are associated with health disparities such as preterm birth and asthma, but most of these studies are limited in scale and overlook many aspects in a neighborhood that are difficult to measure, including dilapidated buildings and crosswalks.

    Now, a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and the Center for Antiracist Research (CAR) at Boston University (BU) has utilized panorama digital technology through Google Street View (GSV) to identify these neighborhood characteristics on a national scale and shed light on how they contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in local resources and health outcomes across the US.

    Published in the journal JAMA Network Open, the study found that predominantly White neighborhoods had better neighborhood conditions generally associated with good health, such as fewer neglected buildings and multi-family homes, and more greenery than neighborhoods with residents who were primarily Black, of other minority races, or of a variety of races and ethnicities. 

    The findings underscore the need for comprehensive and accessible data platforms that researchers can utilize to better understand the role of the built environment on racial and health inequities, and inform policies that aim to create equitable neighborhood resources in all communities.

    “Large datasets on determinants of health can help us better understand the associations between past and present policies—including racist and antiracist policies—and neighborhood health outcomes,” says study corresponding author Dr. Elaine Nsoesie, associate professor of global health at BUSPH. “Neighborhood images are one dataset that have the potential to enable us to track how neighborhoods are changing, how policies are impacting these changes and the inequities that exist between neighborhoods.”

    For the study, Dr. Nsoesie and colleagues analyzed national data on race, ethnicity, socioeconomics, and health outcomes, and 164 million GSV images across nearly 60,000 US census tracts. The team examined five neighborhood characteristics: dilapidated buildings, green spaces, crosswalks, multi-family homes, and single-lane roads.

    The largest disparities in neighborhood environments were reflected in green space and non-single family homes. Compared to predominantly White neighborhoods, predominantly Black neighborhoods had 2 percent less green space, and neighborhoods with racial minorities other than Black had 11 percent less green space. Compared to White neighborhoods, neighborhoods with racial minorities other than Black had 17 percent more multi-family homes, while neighborhoods with Black residents and neighborhoods with residents representing a variety of races and ethnicities had 6 percent and 4 percent more multi-family homes, respectively.

    The researchers also conducted modeling to measure how the built environment may influence the association between health outcomes and the racial makeup of neighborhoods, and found the strongest connections between sleeping problems among residents in neighborhoods with racial minorities other than Black or White, and asthma among neighborhoods with residents representing a variety of races and ethnicities.

    “An interesting finding from our paper is how a considerable portion of the racial/ethnic differences of the built environment conditions was shown at the state level,” says study co-lead author Yukun Yang, a data scientist at CAR. “This prompts us to think practically about how state and local government and policymakers could and should address the inequitable distribution of built environment resources which could further address the health disparities we observed today.” 

    “Our findings really demonstrate the path-dependent nature of inequality and racial disparities,” says study co-lead author Ahyoung Cho, a racial data/policy tracker at CAR and a political science PhD student at BU. “It is critical to develop appropriate policies to address structural racism.”

    **

    About Boston University School of Public Health

    Founded in 1976, Boston University School of Public Health is one of the top five ranked private schools of public health in the world. It offers master’s- and doctoral-level education in public health. The faculty in six departments conduct policy-changing public health research around the world, with the mission of improving the health of populations—especially the disadvantaged, underserved, and vulnerable—locally and globally

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