We’re falling flat on our faces within research. Within medicine, we feel like we’re separate from the rest of society. Many people think racism doesn’t impact medicine, but that’s far from the case because we’re individuals who make up these institutions. It’s foolish to believe that individual biases or deep-seated structural racism don’t impact our institutions because they do. If we can’t even acknowledge that race is a social construct and racism is a real thing within the disparities research we’re doing, how will we close this gap? How will we solve the problem if we can’t acknowledge the problem even exists?
A better name for disparities research might be racism research.