Call for Papers on Prevention and the Effects of Systemic Racism in Health

Abstract

Health, as defined by the World Health Organization, "is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." 1 It is a simple concept but embodies the effects of multiple forces acting from before conception to the end of life. Although massive local and global disparities in health have been recognized for decades, there is now an emerging consensus that systemic racism, defined as a "system of structures, policies, practices, and norms that construct opportunities and assigns values based on one's phenotype" is one of the strongest forces. 2( p9) In JAMA Network Open, we have published many articles evaluating health outcomes associated with systemic racism, including neighborhood-based social determinants of health associated with premature mortality, 3 discrimination in health care, especially among African American individuals, 4 racial bias of clinicians toward African American women during allocation of advanced heart therapies, 5 disparity in access to trauma centers for Black communities, 6 fear generated by electoral politics on premature births among Latina women, 7 fewer positive effects on health with higher parental education among Hispanic youths, 8 and the projected estimates of African American medical graduates of closed historically Black medical schools. 9

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