Health Beyond the Blog: Decolonizing Health Equity Research

NPR’s podcast series, Shortwave, examines the latest in health and science news, mysteries, and discoveries. In a recent installment entitled “White Scholars Can Complicate Research into Health Disparities,” hosts Maria Godoy and Usha Lee McFarling discuss threats to health equity research, oddly enough, as a function of increased interest and funding in the field as of late. Initiated with the goal of eradicating health inequities along racial, gender, and other social lines, interest in conducting health equity research has grown substantially, particularly in response to COVID-19 morbidity and mortality statistics which have highlighted the severity of health disparities among marginalized communities in the U.S. The influx of funding and publications that the field of health equity research has seen recently has not proven completely productive, however, as many researchers of color and other marginalized identities find themselves struggling to break into a domain of study which they have helped to pioneer. Godoy and McFarling discuss the reason for this recent discovery, health equity tourism, and more in this insightful episode. 

Tune in here to listen!