School of Medicine Center for Health Disparities Research (HDR@UCR)

Structural Racism Reading Group 

In summer 2020, the HDR Internal Steering Committee formed a Structural Racism Reading Group, which meets biweekly on an ongoing basis. Members include Internal Steering Committee members, other people affiliated with the HDR, and members of the UCR School of Medicine. The group meets every two weeks via Zoom, except in summer, to discuss readings related to structural racism, inequities in health, and ways to reduce structural oppression in research and practice. The readings include popular works for the lay public as well as scholarly works for academics. In the case of the latter, the readings include sources from the social sciences and the biomedical sciences. Regular participation is not required; drop-ins are welcome.

Below is the list of readings completed through Spring 2022 (in alphabetical order), and a list of the readings that the group will consider reading in future meetings.

Past Readings

  • Aguirre, A. (2020). Microaggressions, Marginalization, and Stress: Issues of Identity, Place, and Home for Minority Faculty in Academia. In L. T. Benuto, M. P. Duckworth, A. Masuda, & W. O'Donohue (Eds.), Prejudice, Stigma, Privilege, and Oppression (pp. 361-371). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
  • Ahmed, S. (2007). The language of diversity. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(2), 235-256. doi:10.1080/01419870601143927
  • Ahmed, S. (2007). 'You end up doing the document rather than doing the doing': Diversity, race equality and the politics of documentation. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30(4), 590-609. doi:10.1080/01419870701356015
  • Amutah, B. A. C., Greenidge, K., Mante, A., Munyikwa, M., Surya, S. L., Higginbotham, E., . . . Aysola, J. (2021). Misrepresenting Race - The Role of Medical Schools in Propagating Physician Bias. New England Journal of Medicine, 384(9), 872-878. doi:10.1056/NEJMms2025768
  • Asch, A. (2017). Critical Race Theory, Feminism, and Disability: Reflections on Social Justice and Personal Identity. In Disability and Equality Law (1 ed., pp. 143-176): Routledge.
  • Bernard, M. A. (2022, February 24, 2022). How virtual covenings can enhance diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.  Retrieved from https://nexus.od.nih.gov/all/2022/02/24/how-virtual-convenings-can-enhance-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility/
  • Boyd, R. W., Lindo, E. G., Weeks, L. D., & McLemore, M. R. (2020, July 2, 2020). On Racism: A New Standard For Publishing On Racial Health Inequities.  
  • Buchanan, N. T., Perez, M., Prinstein, M. J., & Thurston, I. B. (2021). Upending racism in psychological science: Strategies to change how science is conducted, reported, reviewed, and disseminated. Am Psychol, 76(7), 1097-1112. doi:10.1037/amp0000905
  • Cerdena, J. P., Plaisime, M. V., & Tsai, J. (2020). From race-based to race-conscious medicine: how anti-racist uprisings call us to act. Lancet, 396(10257), 1125-1128. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32076-6
  • Chomilo, N. T. (2020). Building racial equity into the walls of health policy.  Retrieved from
  • DiAngelo, R. J. (2018). White fragility : why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Boston: Beacon Press.
  • DiAngelo, R. J. (2021). Nice racism: how progressive white people perpetuate racial harm. Boston: Beacon Press.
  • Gallagher, C. A. (2000). White like me? In F. W. Twine & J. W. Warren (Eds.), Racing research, researching race : methodological dilemmas in critical race studies. New York: New York University Press.
  • Garcia, S., Trummel, T., Cornejo, M., Maldonado, K., Ojeda, A., Flores, H., & Link, B. G. (2021). Immigrant Health Inequities: Exposing Diversions and White Supremacy. Social Sciences-Basel, 10(9). doi:ARTN 341 10.3390/socsci10090341
  • Groos, M., Wallace, M., Hardeman, R., & Theall, K. P. (2018). Measuring inequity: a systematic review of methods used to quantify structural racism. Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice, 11(2).
  • Hattery, A. J., Smith, E., Magnuson, S., Monterrosa, A., Kafonek, K., Shaw, C., . . . Kanewske, L. C. (2022). Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Research Teams: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Race and Justice, 12(3), 505-530. doi:10.1177/21533687221087373
  • Hicken, M. T., Kravitz-Wirtz, N., Durkee, M., & Jackson, J. S. (2018). Racial inequalities in health: Framing future research. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 11-18. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.027
  • Homan, P., Brown, T. H., & King, B. (2021). Structural Intersectionality as a New Direction for Health Disparities Research. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 62(3), 350-370. doi:10.1177/00221465211032947
  • Islam, N. (2000). Research as an act of betrayal. In F. W. Twine & J. W. Warren (Eds.), Racing research, researching race : methodological dilemmas in critical race studies. New York: New York University Press.
  • Kaufman, J. S., & Cooper, R. S. (1995). In search of the hypothesis. Public Health Reports, 110(6), 662-666.
  • Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to Be an Antiracist: Random House Publishing Group.
  • Legha, R. K., Williams, D. R., Snowden, L., & Miranda, J. (2020). Getting Our Knees Off Black People’s Necks: An Anti-Racist Approach to Medical Care.  
  • Malat, J., Mayorga-Gallo, S., & Williams, D. R. (2018). The effects of whiteness on the health of whites in the USA. Social Science & Medicine, 199, 148-156. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.06.034
  • Mayes, C., Paradies, Y., & Elias, A. (2021). Lead Essay-Institutional Racism, Whiteness, and the Role of Critical Bioethics. J Bioeth Inq, 18(1), 9-12. doi:10.1007/s11673-021-10103-5
  • McFarling, U. L. (2022). 20 years ago, a landmark report spotlighted systemic racism in medicine. Why has so little changed?  
  • McWhorter, J. (2020, July 15, 2020). The Dehumanizing Condescencion of White Fragility. The Atlantic. 
  • Metzl, J. (2019). Dying of whiteness : how the politics of racial resentment is killing America's heartland (First edition. ed.). New York: Basic Books.
  • Metzl, J. M., & Hansen, H. (2014). Structural competency: theorizing a new medical engagement with stigma and inequality. Social Science & Medicine, 103, 126-133. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.06.032
  • Moyer, M. W. (2022). Women Are Calling Out ‘Medical Gaslighting’. In. New York: New York Times Company.
  • Olayiwola, J. N., Joseph, J. J., Glover, A. R., Paz, H. L., & Gray, D. M. I. (2020). Making Anti-Racism A Core Value In Academic Medicine.  Retrieved from
  • Phelan, J. C., & Link, B. G. (2015). Is Racism a Fundamental Cause of Inequalities in Health? Annual review of sociology, 41(1), 311-330. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073014-112305
  • Phelan, J. C., Link, B. G., & Feldman, N. M. (2013). The Genomic Revolution and Beliefs about Essential Racial Differences: A Backdoor to Eugenics? American Sociological Review, 78(2), 167-191. doi:10.1177/0003122413476034
  • Rawls, A. W., & Duck, W. (2020). Tacit racism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Roberts, S. O., Bareket-Shavit, C., Dollins, F. A., Goldie, P. D., & Mortenson, E. (2020). Racial Inequality in Psychological Research: Trends of the Past and Recommendations for the Future. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(6), 1295-1309. doi:10.1177/1745691620927709
  • Roithmayr, D. (2014). Reproducing racism : how everyday choices lock in white advantage. New York: New York University Press.
  • Saini, A. (2019). Superior : the return of race science. Boston: Beacon Press.
  • Sun, M., Oliwa, T., Peek, M. E., & Tung, E. L. (2022). Negative Patient Descriptors: Documenting Racial Bias In The Electronic Health Record. Health Aff (Millwood), 41(2), 203-211. doi:10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01423
  • Sun, M. J., Oliwa, T., Peek, M. E., & Tung, E. L. (2021). Negative Patient Descriptors: Documenting Racial Bias in the Electronic Health Record. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 36(Suppl 1), S70-S70. 
  • Suzuki, S., Morris, S. L., & Johnson, S. K. (2021). Using QuantCrit to Advance an Anti-Racist Developmental Science: Applications to Mixture Modeling. Journal of Adolescent Research, 36(5), 535-560. doi:Artn 07435584211028229 10.1177/07435584211028229
  • Tsai, J., Lindo, E., & Bridges, K. (2021). Seeing the Window, Finding the Spider: Applying Critical Race Theory to Medical Education to Make Up Where Biomedical Models and Social Determinants of Health Curricula Fall Short. Frontiers in Public Health, 9, 653643. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.653643
  • Twine, F. W. (2000). Racial ideologies and racial methodologies. In F. W. Twine & J. W. Warren (Eds.), Racing research, researching race : methodological dilemmas in critical race studies. New York: New York University Press.
  • Vyas, D. A., Eisenstein, L. G., & Jones, D. S. (2020). Hidden in Plain Sight - Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms. N Engl J Med, 383(9), 874-882. doi:10.1056/NEJMms2004740
  • Wang, K., Cullen, T. A., & Nunez-Smith, M. (2021). Centering Equity In The Design And Use Of Health Information Systems: Partnering With Communities On Race, Ethnicity, And Language Data.  
  • Wilkerson, I. (2020). Caste : the origins of our discontents (First edition. ed.). New York: Random House.
  • Zou, L. X., & Cheryan, S. (2017). Two axes of subordination: A new model of racial position. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 112(5), 696-717. doi:10.1037/pspa0000080
  • Zuberi, T. (2008). Deracializing social statistics. In T. Zuberi & E. Bonilla-Silva (Eds.), White logic, white methods : racism and methodology (pp. vii, 416 p.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Future Readings