African Americans, Democracy, and Biomedical and Behavioral Research: Contradictions or Consensus in Community-Based Participatory Research?

Race, health, and the African Diaspora

Health inequalities exist throughout the African Diaspora and are viewed in this article as largely color-coded. In developed, developing, and undeveloped nations today, "racial" stratification is consistently reflected in an inability to provide adequate health regardless of national policy or ideology. For instance, African Americans experience less than adequate health care very similar to Blacks in Britain, in spite of each nations differing health systems. Latin America's Africana Negra communities experience poorer health similar to Blacks throughout the Caribbean. The African continent itself is arguably the poorest on earth. A common history of racism correlates with health disparities across the African Diaspora.

Doing participatory action research in a racist world

This exploration of the racial power dynamics in a participatory action research project with women who had experienced intimate partner violence discusses the challenges inherent in doing participatory action with antiracist intent and offers suggestions for overcoming these challenges. To engage in this type of research, explicit commitment to the goals of an antiracist intent needs to be shared as widely as possible. Fostering such shared commitment demands that the social locations of all involved be interrogated continuously. Such interrogation, however, needs to be prefaced with understanding that individuals are not representative of particular power positions or social identities or locations and with critical attention to how language and social structures shape racism and other forms of dominance. Being inclusive must be understood as complex and the influence of diverse agendas and perspectives acknowledged and taken into account. In the face of such complexity, "success" in research may need redefinition.