About the Program

The FXB Center aims to create an actionable field of scholarship examining the impact of structural racism on health and builds ties with our neighbors – community organizations, decision-makers, media, and government partners – to ensure this research appears not only in academic journals but is also communicated in ways that help guide change.

The FXB Center’s Structural Racism Initiative for Diversity with Equity (STRIDE) uses practice-oriented research to deepen the knowledge base and to fill gaps in content and methodology. Its activities have included support for post-doctoral research on how racism harms health, student internships with community organizations, and a project focused on the potential public health impact of monetary reparations for African enslavement.

Research brings together scholars and practitioners to investigate several mutually reinforcing areas through which racial health inequities are perpetuated. Topics include:

Addressing the adverse perinatal impacts for Black-birthing people residing in resource-deprived neighborhoods over their life course
Impact of parental incarceration on children
Racial bias training in medical education and clinical practice, race-based medicine, algorithmic bias, and health policy.
House discrimination and neighborhood segregation
Environmental practices and climate justice
Novel ways of monitoring health outcomes on the neighborhood level using wastewater sampling

Beyond the moral imperative of achieving equity, what public health can add to the call to end structural racism is data that will inform life-saving actions and decisions at the structural level. The FXB Center believes research on structural racism can help quantify the cost of inaction and provide the needed evidence to reform existing structures and practices.