Theorizing Racism as a Multifaceted, Interconnected, and Fundamental Cause of Health Inequities

Whitney Pirtle, Associate Professor of Sociology and MacArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights, UC Merced
Racism is a multifaceted, interconnected, and fundamental cause of racialized health inequities. As such, racism impacts who gets sick, who dies, and who is able to live healthy. In this talk Dr. Pirtle will overview interventions of her empirical research, informed by critical race theory, that utilizes multidimensional measures of race and skin color, and structural measures of racism, to explore health outcomes for Black, Latinx, and other populations of color. The talk demonstrates that using theoretically informed measures of race and racism help us refine our understanding of racialized health associations and clarifies mechanisms of structural racism that shape contemporary racialized health inequities. Collectively, the discussion helps think through equitable interventions that can facilitate better health for more of us.
Sponsored by the Center for Research on Social Change, part of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues
Co-sponsored by: Berkeley Sociology, Berkeley Public Health, Berkeley Center for Social Medicine
March 20, 2024