Chandra L. FordDerek M. GriffithMarino A. BruceKeon L. Gilbert 2019. Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association Press, 2019. $75.00. Paperback. pp. 583. Hardcover. ISBN: 978‐0‐87553‐303‐2

• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Author: Arrianna Marie Planey
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/wmh3.379

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doi: 10.1002/wmh3.379

© 2020 Policy Studies Organization

Book Review

Chandra L. Ford, Derek M. Griffith, Marino A. Bruce, Keon L. Gilbert, eds. 2019.

Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health Professional. Washington, DC: American

Public Health Association Press, 2019. $75.00. Paperback. pp. 583. Hardcover. ISBN:

978‐0‐87553‐303‐2

This edited volume is an important intervention that synthesizes public health

research and practice with regard to structural racism and the health inequities that

result. Chapters are authored by public health practitioners, researchers, educators,

health justice advocates, and health‐care practitioners. The editors, Dr. Chandra L.

Ford, Dr. Derek M. Griffith, Dr. Marino A. Bruce, and Dr. Keon L. Gilbert, collec-

tively bring a breadth of expertise in community health, medicine, health and social

policy, and the social and behavioral sciences. This interdisciplinary background is

evident in the fact that the edited volume draws on interdisciplinary and varied

theoretical (Critical Race Theory; Public Health Critical Race praxis)and meth-

odological approaches. Effectively, Racism: Science & Tools for the Public Health

Professional places wide‐ranging literature in conversation to forward a full‐bodied

volume that covers inequities borne by Black, Latinx, Asian and Pacific Islander,

Indigenous, and Arab communities in the United States and its territories. As

Thorpe and colleagues succinctly state in Chapter 10 (“Racism Across the Life

Course”),“[r]acism influences health directly through shaping environmental and

institutional conditions and practices and through intermediate and proximate

factors that impact health outcomes”(p. 209). In keeping with the title, the book is

accessible to public health practitioners in and out of academia. It also makes a case

for working toward health equity and health justice and moving away from

treating marginalized and minoritized communities as the problem. The remedy,

then, is not ahistorical, stigmatizing blame, but redistributive policies and practices

that value people and populations equally, without producing “expendable”or

“disposable”populations, recognize and redress historical injustices; and allocate

resources according to need (to paraphrase Jones, 2000).

As we witness the fallout from the COVID‐19 pandemic along the fault lines

borne of structural racism in policymaking and resource allocation, Racism: Science &

Tools for the Public Health Professional remains perennially salient. In keeping with

Gilmore's (2007)definition of racism, “state‐sanctioned or extra‐legal production and