I am interested in examining racial disparities in hypertension and stroke, particularly focused on the health of Black Americans. To that end, I hope to contextualize their disease risk by examining the broader social inequities that contribute to it. I believe the Minnesota Population Center will be helpful in gaining access to data that will help me create a comprehensive measure of structural racism and also economic inequity between Black and White racial groups.
I believe that racial disparities in health are best explained by examining the societal, not individual, factors creating these disparities. My purpose is to call attention to how structural racism affects the health of racially and ethnically minoritized people, and evaluate how perceptions of race and beliefs regarding the etiology of racial health disparities drive clinician decisions, worsening the health of minoritized people. To that end, I study how clinicians’ perceptions of race as a biological or sociopolitical phenomenon relates to their use of race in making clinical decisions. I also study the structural factors associated with cardiovascular disease inequity, such as economic inequity, and, more broadly, structural racism.