A3.02 - Oral: Understanding the Value of Antiracist Pedagogy in Public Health Teaching and Learning

Brief Abstract Summary: Understand how teaching public health equity from an antiracist perspective influences public health professionals to advance health equity across communities.
Recognize how learning about systemic racism and the historical background of systems of oppression influence students’ learning and role as public health professionals.
Discover practical strategies for using pedagogical initiatives that address antiracism in the field of public health.

Detailed abstract description: “It makes me more aware when I walk into a space:” Understanding the value of antiracist pedagogy in public health teaching and learning.

Background
Achieving the highest level of health for all involves addressing historical and contemporary injustices such as systematic racism. One way we can address structural racism is by employing anti-racism at every level, one of which is in education. This emphasizes the importance of training public health students with adequate knowledge to be anti-racist health professionals. Antiracist pedagogy in public health leads us to questions about whose knowledge is authorized when describing public health needs. One major consideration for this year’s conference is to examine how public health education professionals are positioned to act on its values of health equity to advance upstream policies and practices impacting social determinants of health. In this presentation, I invite the conference audience to explore how teaching public health equity from an antiracist perspective influences public health professionals to advance health equity across communities.
Method
This descriptive study used the Health Equity Framework and the Critical Race Theory to explore students’ understanding of being antiracist public health professionals. For data collection, purposive sampling was used to recruit past and present students who took specific public health courses that adopted antiracist pedagogy. At the end of recruitment, this study consisted of five participants. In-depth interviews, member-checking interviews, and observational field notes were employed for data collection. Data coding (initial and focus coding) and thematic analysis were conducted in Dedoose.
Result
In this presentation, I will share study findings that reveal how systemic racism and the historical background of systems of oppression influence public health student’s learning and profession. Study participants felt emboldened to address health inequities, especially in situations that could have been ignored in the past. For many participants, they could not unsee systemic oppression anymore; they were now aware of different effects of health inequities in their communities. The study findings also revealed that many students who were public health professionals started finding ways to influence their organizational practice to be anti-racist. Although students felt some conversations were difficult, these courses encouraged them to question the status quo and make a change. Some participants echoed a challenge of the popularity of anti-racism but a lack of practical strategies to make the change.
I will conclude this presentation by providing recommendations and practical strategies that conference audience can implement as they work towards using pedagogical initiatives that address antiracism in the field of public health.