Date of Award

2022

Document Type

Project

College/School

College of Nursing

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Project Mentor

Jennifer Fricas

Readers

Michael Huggins

Abstract

Structural racism persists through every level of society, from housing, economic participation, education, criminal justice, access to healthcare, to poor healthcare outcomes. A critical dimension of structural racism is the persistent normalization of negative racial attitudes towards people of color, a manifestation of which is negative and harmful racist stereotypes presented in media, literature, and outdated medical knowledge. Internalization of structural racism gives rise to implicit and explicit bias towards different racial groups which poses health risks to patients of color. Studies have shown that health disparities persist for people of color even when controlling for socioeconomic differences among races, highlighting the harm of racial bias. A survey of 15 cross-sectional studies found that most healthcare providers carry a negative implicit bias towards patients of color and a positive implicit bias towards White patients. These harmful negative racial attitudes exist in medical and nursing academia, and novel efforts to address implicit bias are ongoing. There exists a large knowledge gap between social determinants of health and structural racism. Implementing a case-study workshop to address implicit bias among nursing faculty and their curriculums are a low-cost and effective method to close this gap. The purpose of this project is to address implicit bias in nursing academia through a Public Health Critical Race Praxis framework as faculty are directly responsible for preparing nurses and clinicians of the future for a diverse patient population.

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