Searching for Racial Health Equity: A Computational Text Analysis of Public Health Theses and Dissertations: AERA Sessions, 12:12 PM

• In Event: e-Lightening Ed-Talk Session 8

Abstract

"According to the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) 2016 accreditation criteria, public health graduate programs must prepare students to discuss racism and other structural biases. Yet nationwide assessments of students’ racial health equity knowledge remain limited. To provide a baseline indicator of student learning, I aimed to determine the extent to which racial groups were studied and whether health was framed using social inequality, biomedical, behavioral, social ecological, or community theories. I analyzed public health abstracts published between 2018-2022 in the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database (N=13,797).
I conducted computational text analysis to determine which words were normalized, which racial groups were studied, and which theories were applied in abstracts from CEPH accredited schools and programs (N=5,180). Nearly half (46%) used theory-related terms without naming racial groups, 30% named racial group and theory terms, 17% omitted both types of terms, and 9% named racial groups without theory. Among abstracts naming any racial group (N=1,916), terms primarily referred to African Americans (N=947), whites (N=777), and race generally (e.g., ‘race’, ‘minority’; N=479). Behavioral (e.g., ‘attitudes’, ‘lifestyle’; N=2,664) and biomedical (‘disease*’, ‘genetic*’; N=1,684) theory terms were the most prevalent. Social inequality terms were scant (e.g., ‘racism’, ‘racialized’, ‘critical_race_theory’; N=294). Few abstracts (N=95) discussed African American health through the lens of social inequality. By examining everyday processes of cultural racism in academia, I provided a baseline estimate of public health student learning. Such empirical evidence may bridge the gap between public health’s espoused priorities and educational strategies for advancing racial health equity."

Author

• Erin Manalo-Pedro, University of California - Los Angeles