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. 2012 May;102(5):936-44.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2011.300544. Epub 2012 Mar 15.

Methods for the scientific study of discrimination and health: an ecosocial approach

Nancy Krieger  1
Affiliations

Methods for the scientific study of discrimination and health: an ecosocial approach

Nancy Krieger. Am J Public Health. 2012 May.

Abstract

The scientific study of how discrimination harms health requires theoretically grounded methods. At issue is how discrimination, as one form of societal injustice, becomes embodied inequality and is manifested as health inequities. As clarified by ecosocial theory, methods must address the lived realities of discrimination as an exploitative and oppressive societal phenomenon operating at multiple levels and involving myriad pathways across both the life course and historical generations. An integrated embodied research approach hence must consider (1) the structural level-past and present de jure and de facto discrimination; (2) the individual level-issues of domains, nativity, and use of both explicit and implicit discrimination measures; and (3) how current research methods likely underestimate the impact of racism on health.

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Figures

FIGURE 1—
FIGURE 1—
Ecosocial theory: schematic illustration as applied to analyzing the embodiment of racial inequality and its implications for health inequities. Source. Krieger.
FIGURE 2—
FIGURE 2—
The Jim Crow geography of mortality: US racial/ethnic inequities in all-cause mortality, 1960–2006. Source. N. Krieger, J. T. Chen, A. Koshelva, P. D. Waterman unpublished data, 2012, with written permission from all authors.
FIGURE 3—
FIGURE 3—
Implicit Association Test and use for measuring exposure to racial discrimination. Source. Carney et al. and Krieger et al.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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