Critical ‘street race’ praxis: advancing the measurement of racial discrimination among diverse Latinx communities in the U.S

Identification of Determinants and Implementation Strategies to Increase Long-Acting Injectable PrEP for HIV Prevention Among Latino Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM)

BACKGROUND

Latino men who have sex with men (LMSM) are disproportionally affected by HIV infections in the USA. The uptake rate of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention has remained low among LMSM. Long-acting injectable PrEP (LAI-PrEP) may have the potential to improve structural, behavioral, and cognitive barriers to adherence. Given the potential benefits of LAI-PrEP and the limited data with this population, the aim of our study was to explore experiences and attitudes of LAI-PrEP among LMSM and identify implementation barriers compared to the standard oral presentation, align proposed implementation strategies, and propose outcomes to monitor and assess impact.

METHODS

In this qualitative study, guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, we explored health care providers perspectives on facilitators and barriers to LAI-PrEP implementation strategies for LMSM. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic content analysis.

RESULTS

Fear of immigration policies, ability to conceal PrEP medication, health insurance coverage, health information fatigue, lack of culturally adapted information, and provider's lack of knowledge were among the main barriers to LAI-PrEP. Most providers discussed the need for adapted and/or tailored training materials for and suggested designing marketing materials and specific clinical recommendations for LAI-PrEP.

CONCLUSION

In order to ensure an effective adaptation process that encompasses local and national goals of HIV prevention, future interventions should be designed in a way that incorporates culturally relevant information for LMSM. This study provides an implementation research logic model to guide future studies.

A Study on Economic Stressors During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survivors in the United States

Systemic racism and racialized poverty are socially produced structural determinants that shape health outcomes during infectious disease outbreaks. Public health emergencies compound vulnerabilities for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence (SV) and those who self-identify as people from racial and ethnic minority groups. We describe findings from an online survey designed to collect data on financial conditions faced by survivors of IPV and SV to understand these conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analyses were limited to a sample of women in the United States (91.4%, n = 523) who reported IPV or SV to whom we refer as survivors. We characterize the differences of economic stressors across White and aggregated categories of self-identified race, i.e., Black and Brown Latinx women and non-Black or non-Brown Latinx women of color, to highlight disparities between White and non-White populations in our sample. Logistic regressions were used to examine the relationships among racial categories, food insecurity, housing insecurity, and economic insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Black and Brown Latinx women survivors were twice as likely as White women to report housing, financial, and economic insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately one-third of all survivors anticipated taking on more debt than they would want to cover their expenses due to COVID-19. The results of this study have implications for public health responses that involve coordinating economic relief measures among populations disparately affected by public health crises and disasters to ensure that the economic needs of the most impacted are addressed.

Critical action to redress systemic oppression: a person-centered approach

Introduction

In 2020, public outcry against police brutality prompted many social media users to post black squares and use the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (BLM). Many of the people who posted these squares were engaging in performative action in the sense that they failed to engage with BLM's history and core principles. Drawing from a critical action framework, the current research seeks to more deeply understand what drives people to engage in more versus less impactful forms of action to resist systemic oppression.

Methods

We employed a mixed-methods and person-centered methodological approach with the goal of providing nuanced information about factors that distinguish among individuals who engage in different forms of action. Participants were 359 undergraduates who reported that they engaged in some form of action to support BLM.

Findings

Latent profile analysis identified three subgroups (i.e., latent classes) in the larger sample, which we labeled (1) intentional action, (2) intermediate action, and (3) passive action. Participants in each latent class differed from one another in their sociopolitical attitudes, sociodemographic background, and level of action to support BLM. Through the qualitative coding process, the research team unearthed three overarching themes and a range of subthemes that help to explain why the members of each class engaged in different forms of action.

Discussion

We conclude by proposing a flexible intervention that may motivate individuals to engage in critical action to support BLM.

Self-rated health of both US citizens and noncitizens is associated with state-level immigrant criminalization policies

Evidence shows that state-level restrictive immigrant policies are associated with health disparities between noncitizens and citizens. Most research has focused on Latinos and there is limited knowledge of the relationship between restrictive policies and citizenship status among other groups, particularly Asian and Pacific Islanders (API). We examined whether state-level criminalization policy contexts (e.g., law enforcement collaboration with immigration authorities, E-Verify employment authorization) were associated with self-rated health (SRH) by citizenship, with a focus on Latinos and APIs. We expected that criminalization policies would be associated with worse health for noncitizens and citizens, but with a more negative influence for noncitizens; and that this pattern would be the same for Latinos and APIs. We merged a state-level immigrant criminalization policy database with a multi-racial/ethnic sample from 2014 to 2015 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS, n = 70,335). We tested the association between SRH and the number of state-level criminalization policies and generated predicted probabilities of noncitizens and citizens reporting excellent health in states with the most and fewest criminalization policies for the full sample, Latino, and API respondents. In states with the most criminalization policies, all noncitizens had a higher and all US-born citizens had a lower probability of excellent health. In states with the fewest criminalization policies there were no differences by citizenship status. Findings provide new evidence that state-level immigrant policies may harm the health of US-born citizens. As immigrant policymaking at the state level continues, understanding the relationship between state-level immigrant policies and health inequities across citizenship statuses will continue to be critical to improving population health.

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State policies that criminalize immigrants may harm the health of both noncitizens and citizens of different races/ethnicities.

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More state immigrant criminalization policies are associated with health inequities between US citizens and noncitizens.

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Immigrant criminalization policies are associated with worse self-reported health for US born citizens.

Deployments of Multiracial Masculinity and Anti-Black Violence: The Racial Framings of Barack Obama, George Zimmerman, and Daunte Wright

In this article, I examine how political and media discourses of multiraciality are deployed to justify guilt and innocence. I trace the deployment of multiraciality to determine who is deserving of life or death in media coverage, political rhetoric, and court records during Obama’s presidency, in George Zimmerman’s 2013 acquittal, and in the 2021 killing of Daunte Wright. I examine the weaponization of discourses of multiracial identities as tools of white supremacy and anti-Blackness. Through such weaponization, the construction of the multiracial man as an index of racial progress and post-racism evident in the Barack Obama era enabled the violence and miscarriages of justice in the killings of Trayvon Martin and Daunte Wright. I consider how transnational and U.S. narratives of multiraciality, joined with anti-Blackness and white supremacy, enabled the acquittal of George Zimmerman. Furthermore, I examine how white womanhood and fears of Black masculinity facilitated the sympathy garnered towards Kim Potter. In considering the killing of Daunte Wright, this paper shows how multiraciality and racial malleability are valuable only when utilized for preserving racial hierarchies.

The Importance of Biobehavioral Research to Examine the Physiological Effects of Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in the Latinx Population

A growing body of research is documenting how racial and ethnic populations embody social inequalities throughout the life course. Some scholars recommend the integration of biospecimens representing the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, neurological and endocrinological processes, and inflammation to capture the embodiment of inequality. However, in comparison to other racial and ethnic groups, there has been little research examining how Hispanic/Latinx persons embody racial and ethnic discrimination, much less resulting from institutional and structural racism. We provide a rationale for expanding biobehavioral research examining the physiological consequences of racism among Latinx persons. We identify gaps and make recommendations for a future research agenda in which biobehavioral research can expand knowledge about chronic disease inequities among Latinx populations and inform behavioral and institutional interventions. We end by cautioning readers to approach the recommendations in this article as a call to expand the embodiment of racism research to include the diverse Latinx population as the United States addresses racial inequity.

What’s Your Street Race? The Urgency of Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality as Lenses for Revising the U.S. Office of Management and Budget Guidelines, Census and Administrative Data in Latinx Communities and Beyond

What’s your street race? If you were walking down the street what race do you think strangers would automatically assume you are based on what you look like? What is the universe of data and conceptual gaps that complicate or prevent rigorous data collection and analysis for advancing racial justice? Using Latinx communities in the U.S. as an example, we argue that scholars, researchers, practitioners and communities across traditional academic, sectoral and disciplinary boundaries can advance liberation by engaging the ontologies, epistemologies and conceptual guideposts of critical race theory and intersectionality in knowledge production for equity-use. This means not flattening the difference between race (master social status and relational positionality in a racially stratified society based on the social meanings ascribed to a conglomeration of one’s physical characteristics, including skin color, facial features and hair texture) and origin (ethnicity, cultural background, nationality or ancestry). We discuss the urgency of revising the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards, as well as the Census and other administrative data to include separate questions on self-identified race (mark all that apply) and street race (mark only one). We imagine street race as a rigorous “gold standard” for identifying and rectifying racialized structural inequities.

Colorism and Physical Health: Evidence from a National Survey

This study uses nationally representative data to extend a steadily growing body of research on the health consequences of skin color by comparatively examining the consequences of perceived ingroup and outgroup skin color discrimination (perceived colorism) for physical health among African Americans. Using a comprehensive set of measures of physical health, I find that perceived ingroup colorism is significantly associated with worse physical health outcomes among African Americans. Notably, the magnitude of ingroup colorism's associations with most of these outcomes rivals or even exceeds that of major lifetime discrimination, everyday discrimination, and perceived outgroup colorism. These findings compellingly suggest the inclusion of perceived colorism measures in future survey data collection efforts.