Mapping "Race" and Inequality: Best Practices forTheorizing and Operationalizing

描述(申请人提供)：种族继续在各级政府的政策讨论中占据中心地位。特别是在卫生政策领域，自1985年以来，联邦政府制定了几项专门倡议，以探索卫生和公众服务部内部的种族差异。尽管大多数学者都认为，将人类归类为不同的生物群体并没有什么用处，但事实就是如此。尽管近几十年来，这种关于种族的建构主义方法已经在社会科学中占据主导地位，但研究人员在很大程度上未能理解研究设计和解释的相应含义。这是研究基于种族的健康差距的主要障碍。我们在拟议研讨会的标题中引用了“种族”一词，以质疑关于种族的流行观点，因为这些观点反映了人类之间自然的、基于生物的分歧。种族是一种多维的社会结构，它反映在对权力和社会结构、文化和代表性、个人和集体认同的评估中，以及在认知和生活经验中。种族仍然强大，不是因为种族认同或种族类别说明了一些在生物学上有意义的事情，而是因为种族作为一种社会现实的力量，导致个人和社区截然不同的生活体验，促成了健康结果中历史性的、长期的和具体的种族差异。研究健康差距的研究人员应该如何理解和衡量“种族”是一种社会建构的多维现象这一事实？我们的工作坊，描绘“种族”和不平等：卫生政策研究中“种族”理论化和可操作性的最佳实践，将准确地探讨将种族作为一种多方面的社会建设来捕捉的挑战。我们将召集20名来自健康、社会和生物科学的学者，在“种族”和社会正义研究所举行为期两天的密集研讨会，该研究所设在皇家妇联卫生政策中心，这是美国国立卫生研究院在新墨西哥州大学的卓越中心(2011年4月28日至29日)。研讨会的目标有三个方面。首先，我们将汇聚来自多个学科和社会/生物/健康科学部门的学者，分享他们的战略，以应对如何在种族是社会构建的理论洞察力的情况下运作种族。其次，我们将为社会科学家制定一套跨学科的指导方针，通过现有的数据集来衡量种族。这些策略将构成对研究人员的建议，这些研究人员必须依赖当前的数据集如何使RACE具有可操作性。第三，我们将探索在一个没有资源限制的理想世界中，我们如何在收集新数据时最准确地衡量种族。不受当前数据集或收集原始数据(例如，时间、资源等)的问题的束缚，这个群体将如何寻求将卫生研究中的种族作为一种多方面的社会结构来衡量，并试图超越学科边界和方法取向？修订后的研讨会论文将成为我们将共同编辑的跨学科研究种族差异和卫生政策卷的一部分。我们将寻求一份图书合同，以及为2012年学院卫生研究年度会议的全国会议或特别小组提供额外资金。 与公共卫生相关：拟议的项目将在新墨西哥大学罗伯特·伍德·约翰逊卫生政策中心“种族”与社会正义研究所举办为期两天的讲习班，召集一个多学科的种族与健康专家小组(2011年4月28日至29日)，以提供对医学中一个紧迫问题的潜在解决方案，即在健康和差异研究中将种族概念化和实施化。讲习班将产生：(1)使用现有数据集(定量和定性)衡量健康差距中的种族问题的跨学科准则和最佳做法；(2)收集关于种族和健康差距的初级数据(定量和定性)的新的跨学科衡量工具和协议。受邀的研讨会参与者将通过准备一篇10-20页的论文来为实现这些目标做出贡献，该论文涉及以下问题：(1)您的学科如何在卫生政策研究中将种族概念化？(2)您如何在研究设计中操作和衡量种族？(3)利用现有数据来源操作种族的最佳实践是什么？(4)如果您拥有无限的资源，您将如何开展一个关于种族和健康差距的模型研究项目，将种族作为一种多维的社会结构来捕捉，并最终超越学科和方法的界限？研讨会的论文将作为题为《种族差异和卫生政策研究的跨学科战略》的编辑卷出版，我们将共同编辑。这本选集将对面临收集有关种族和健康差距的有意义数据的持续挑战的学者和政策制定者具有巨大的吸引力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Race continues to occupy a central role in policy discussions at all levels of government. In the area of health policy in particular, since 1985, the federal government has created several specialized initiatives to explore racial disparities within the Department of Health and Human Services. This is the case even as most scholars agree that that race has no utility as a way of categorizing humans into biologically distinctive groups. Although this constructionist approach to race has become dominant in the social sciences in recent decades, researchers have largely failed to grapple with the corresponding implications for research design and interpretation. This is a major barrier to research on race-based health disparities. We place "race" in quotes in the title of the proposed workshop to call into question popular ideas about race as reflecting natural, biologically based divisions among humans. Race is a multi- dimensional social construction that is reflected in assessments of power and social structure; culture and representation; individual and collective identity; as well as in cognition and lived experience. Race remains powerful not because racial identity or racial categories say something biologically meaningful, but because of the power of race as a social reality that results in very different lived experiences for individuals and communities, contributing to historic, chronic and embodied racial disparities in health outcomes. How should the fact that "race" is a socially constructed, multi-dimensional phenomenon be understood and measured by researchers studying health disparities? Our workshop, Mapping "Race" and Inequality: Best Practices for Theorizing and Operationalizing "Race" in Health Policy Research will explore precisely the challenge of capturing race as a multi-faceted social construction. We will convene 20 scholars from the health, social and biological sciences for an intensive, two-day workshop at the Institute for the Study of "Race" & Social Justice, housed at the RWJF Center for Health Policy, a NIH-Center of Excellence at UNM (April 28-29, 2011). The workshop objectives are three-fold. First, we will bring together scholars from multiple disciplines and from across the social/biological/health science divides to share their strategies for grappling with how to operationalize race given the theoretical insight that race is socially constructed. Second, we will generate a set of trans-disciplinary guidelines for social scientists measuring race via existing data sets. These strategies would constitute recommendations to researchers who must rely on how current data sets have operationalized race. Third, we will explore how, in an ideal world without resource constraints, we would most accurately measure race in the collection of new data. Unfettered by current data sets or the problems of collecting primary data (e.g., time, resources, etc.), how would this group seek to measure race in health research as a multi-faceted social construction and also attempt to transcend disciplinary boundaries and methodological orientations? Revised workshop papers will be part of the edited volume Trans-disciplinary Strategies for Research on Racial Disparities & Health Policy, which we will co-edit. We will seek a book contract as well as additional funding for a national conference or special panel at the annual Academy Health research meeting in 2012. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed project will convene a multi-disciplinary team of race and health experts in a two-day workshop at Institute for the Study of "Race" & Social Justice, Robert Wood Johnson Center for Health Policy at The University of New Mexico (April 28-29, 2011) to inform potential solutions to a pressing issue in medicine; that of conceptualizing and operationalizing race in research on health and disparities. The workshop will produce: (1) Trans-disciplinary guidelines and best practices for measuring race in health disparities research using existing data sets (both quantitative and qualitative); (2) New trans-disciplinary measurement tools and protocols for collecting primary data on race and health disparities (both quantitative and qualitative). Invited workshop participants will contribute to achieving these aims by preparing a 10-20 page paper that addresses the following questions: (1) How does your discipline conceptualize race in health policy research? (2) How do you operationalize and measure race in your research design? (3) What are the best practices for operationalizing race with existing data sources? (4) If you had unlimited resources, how would you conduct a model research project on race and health disparities that captures race as a multi-dimensional social construction and ultimately transcends disciplinary and methodological boundaries? The workshop papers will be published as an edited volume entitled, Trans-disciplinary Strategies for Research on Racial Disparities & Health Policy, which we will co-edit. This anthology would have great appeal to scholars and policymakers alike who face the on-going challenges of collecting meaningful data on race and health disparities.