Structural Racism, Intersectionality, and Black Men’s Health

Lisa Bowleg, MA, Ph.D.
The George Washington University

Derek Griffith, Ph.D.
Vanderbilt University

ABSTRACT:
As a Black man, I Got 99 Problems and I Sure Ain’t Thinking about HIV at the End of the Day”: Thinking Critically, Structurally and Intersectionally about Black Men’s Health and Health Inequities

Traditional conceptualizations of health typically frame health primarily as a property of individuals (e.g., attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, behaviors), not as a property of systems and structures beyond the individual-level that constrain health, and in turn, shape health inequities and for historically oppressed groups such as Black people in the U.S.  As such, prevention scientists trained in conventional disciplines that have prioritized social-cognitive and biomedical frameworks exclusively, and those that have disdained  “nontraditional” methods (e.g., qualitative) have likely missed key opportunities to reduce racialized health inequities, primarily because of this predominant focus on the individual-level.  Using insights from my 20-year program of HIV prevention mixed methods research with Black men as a foundation, this presentation will:

• provide an overview of the critical theoretical frameworks (i.e., intersectionality, critical race theory, critical psychology) and social-structural perspectives that are fundamental to my research on Black men’s health;

• highlight qualitative narratives from that research to illustrate how Black men talk about the impact of social-structural factors (e.g., structural racism, police brutality, incarceration, unemployment) on their health and wellbeing; and

• advocate for prevention scientists to become more critically, structurally and intersectionally competent.  This competency is essential to prevention, and the ability to help reduce, not just document, health inequities among Black men at diverse intersections such as class, ethnicity, and sexuality.

Black men, mortality, and the COVID-19 pandemic: A syndemics approach.

In this presentation, Dr. Griffith will use a syndemics approach, informed by an intersectional lens, to make a case that Black men should be a larger focus of COVID-19 research, practice, and policy efforts in the United States. Syndemics are two or more epidemics interacting synergistically in ways that exacerbate their health consequences via disease concentration, disease interaction and the structural forces that underlie these factors. He argues that structural racism and the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic create a context for increased mortality from COVID-19, heart disease, and other factors.

To request Dr. Bowleg and Dr. Griffith’s powerpoint slides, please email psmg@northwestern.edu