Developing Modules to Address Microaggressions and Discriminatory Behaviors

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Project Summary/Abstract Background: Structural racism, defined as all the ways in which society cultivates racial discrimination through reinforcing inequitable systems of education, healthcare, and employment, is manifested in macroaggressions, which are contained within the policies and practices within institutions serving the biomedical sciences. These macroaggressions foster and perpetuate discriminatory beliefs and practices that impair not only scientific productivity and new discoveries in biomedical research but also the career trajectories of those from ethnic minoritized groups and communities. Specifically, macroaggressions necessitate that individuals, especially those in positions of power and leadership change their prejudices and actions. Thus, interventions for macroaggressions and structural racism must recognize and address racial and ethnic prejudices and discrimination that arise on an individual level, known as, racial microaggressions. The harm of racial microaggressions is compounded when intersectional (relating to other marginalized backgrounds such as gender, nativity status etc.) and thus creates overlapping systems of oppression. In order to create a culture conducive to change within a range of biomedical research environments, trainees and their supervisors need to better understand and acknowledge their own backgrounds and how their perspectives have been shaped based upon a combination of their lived experiences interacting with a culture steeped in a history of structural racism. In order to facilitate institutional-level change in policies and procedures that disproportionately impact those from minoritized backgrounds, it is important that institutional leaders also be active change agents. Purpose: The primary objective of the proposal is to create a series of self-directed, self-paced learning modules that biomedical research trainees, supervisors, and organizational leaders can use to better understand ways that structural racism influences their own biases and behaviors as well as strategies to use when they are a target, bystander, or perpetrator of racial and intersectional microaggressions, and to use these strategies in addressing institutional level policies indicative of racial and intersectional macroaggressions. Additional objectives include collecting qualitative and quantitative data to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, accessibility, and initial impact of the new modules on a range of participants. Methods and Design: A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach will be used to ensure that the new educational modules are based upon empirical science, are theoretically-grounded, and include iterative feedback from a range of key stakeholder groups (e.g., biomedical trainees, supervisors, and leaders). A preliminary evaluation including random assignment of participants to intervention and comparator conditions will be used to determine whether the educational modules are associated with increases in knowledge and self-efficacy in appropriately handling racial and intersectional macroaggressions and microaggressions.