Integrating Racism as a Sentinel Indicator in Public Health Surveillance and Monitoring Systems.

Abstract

<b>Objectives.</b> To evaluate public health surveillance and monitoring systems' (PHSMS) efforts to collect, monitor, track, and analyze racism. <b>Methods.</b> We employed an environmental scan approach. We defined key questions and data to be collected, conducted a literature review, and synthesized the results by using a qualitative description approach. <b>Results.</b> We identified 125 PHSMS; only 3-the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System, and California Health Interview Survey-collected and reported data on individual-level racism. Structural racism was not collected in PHSMS; however, we observed evidence for linkages to census and administrative data sets or social media sources to assess structural racism. <b>Conclusions.</b> There is a paucity of PHSMS that measure individual-level racism, and few systems are linked to structural racism measures. <b>Public Health Implications.</b> Adopting a standard practice of racism surveillance can advance equity-centered public health praxis, inform policy, and foster greater accountability among public health practitioners, researchers, and decision-makers. Failure to explicitly address racism and the insufficient capacity to support a robust health equity data infrastructure severely impedes efforts to address and dismantle systemic racism. (<i>Am J Public Health</i>. 2023;113(S1):S80-S84. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307160).