TY - JOUR
T1 - Recommendations foraddressing structural racism in implementation science
T2 - Acall to the field
AU - Shelton, Rachel C.
AU - Adsul, Prajakta
AU - Oh, April
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Ethnicity and Disease, Inc.. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Implementation science (IS) has emerged in response to a striking research-To-practice gap, with the goal of accelerating and addressing the development, translation, and widespread uptake of evidence-based interventions (EBIs). Despite the promise of IS, critical gaps and opportunities remain within the field to explicitly facilitate health equity, particularly as they relate to the role of social determinants of health and structural racism. In this commentary, we propose recommendations for the field of IS to include structural racism as a more explicit focus of our work. First, we make the case for including structural racism as a construct and promote its measurement as a determinant within existing IS frameworks/models, laying the foundation for an empirical evidence base on mechanisms through which such factors influence inequitable adoption, implementation, and sustainability of EBIs. Second, we suggest considerations for both EBIs and implementation strategies that directly or indirectly address structural racism and impact health equity. Finally, we call for use of methods and approaches within IS that may be more appropriate for addressing structural racism at multiple ecological levels and clinical and community settings in which we conduct IS, including community-based participatory research and stakeholder engagement. We see these as opportunities to advance the focus on health equity within IS and conclude with a charge to the field to consider making structural racism and the dismantling of racism an explicit part of the IS research agenda.
AB - Implementation science (IS) has emerged in response to a striking research-To-practice gap, with the goal of accelerating and addressing the development, translation, and widespread uptake of evidence-based interventions (EBIs). Despite the promise of IS, critical gaps and opportunities remain within the field to explicitly facilitate health equity, particularly as they relate to the role of social determinants of health and structural racism. In this commentary, we propose recommendations for the field of IS to include structural racism as a more explicit focus of our work. First, we make the case for including structural racism as a construct and promote its measurement as a determinant within existing IS frameworks/models, laying the foundation for an empirical evidence base on mechanisms through which such factors influence inequitable adoption, implementation, and sustainability of EBIs. Second, we suggest considerations for both EBIs and implementation strategies that directly or indirectly address structural racism and impact health equity. Finally, we call for use of methods and approaches within IS that may be more appropriate for addressing structural racism at multiple ecological levels and clinical and community settings in which we conduct IS, including community-based participatory research and stakeholder engagement. We see these as opportunities to advance the focus on health equity within IS and conclude with a charge to the field to consider making structural racism and the dismantling of racism an explicit part of the IS research agenda.
KW - Health Disparities
KW - Health Equity
KW - Implementation Science
KW - Racism
KW - Structural Racism
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85107246475&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.18865/ed.31.S1.357
DO - 10.18865/ed.31.S1.357
M3 - Article
C2 - 34045837
AN - SCOPUS:85107246475
SN - 1049-510X
VL - 31
SP - 357
EP - 364
JO - Ethnicity and Disease
JF - Ethnicity and Disease
ER -