Abstract:

Researchers and funders have increasingly built racial health equity into their agendas, either as one-off programs, or integrated as explicit areas of focus. However, many funders fail to explicitly theorize and contextualize racial health disparities as products of racism, and set poor examples for integrative collaboration with affected communities of color. Failures of discipline and critical examination such as these can blunt efforts at ameliorating racial health disparities, or even exacerbate the health outcomes gaps between racial strata. This piece argues that funders should explicitly name and define race and racism, leverage anti-racist research, expertise, and lived experience, and integrate impacted community actors to hold equal power to direct, contribute to, and benefit from health equity funding and research.