Medical reform party says this analysis task sounds like activism, no scholarship
The National Institutes of Health has awarded$ 5 million to “generate data” to support their University of Pittsburgh program. Proponents of “racial capital” teaching have received this funding.
The researchers did “test the efficacy of the Cultural Equity Consciousness Institute,” a “movement aimed at addressing widespread racism.”
The academy is run through Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems. The university’s website on “racial capital consciousness” describes” structural prejudice” in medical terms, calling it a “public wellness problems”.
The RECI view uses” structured mental cognitive training”” to actively address and proclaim one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward racial equity and justice”, according to the website.
The system “employs organized, highly-structured practices, to break down educated, unconscious biases and behaviors, replacing them with behaviors that are more aligned with specific values”, according to the national give description.
In the university’s press release, medical scholar Doris Rubio stated,” One of the things that I’m most excited about this investigation is being able to produce proof of the efficacy of RECI.” Being able to say” we have proof that this works” is a really compelling statement, according to me, but talking to people about it and how it’s changed my life is one factor.
In its press release, Pitt stated that the study funded by this offer will concentrate on determining the impact of RECI education and other implicit partiality trainings on variety and engagement as well as on attitudes that perpetuate systemic racism in medical outcomes, especially among disadvantaged communities.
Extra:’ Perceived ‘ racism in healthcare is n’t similar as real discrimination, scholar says
The article states that this treatment will be “measured” by using “brain scanning or fMRIs” in order to see the” fundamental brain changes” both “before and after the action”.
None of the professors would provide comments on their taxpayer-funded research. The College Fix inquired about whether they would review their programming if the training did not succeed, what supporting evidence would be included, and what a brain might look like following their intervention.
Because the methods are an “ongoing research article,” Professor Gretchen White declined to comment on them.
Ron Idoko ( pictured, right ), the director of the Center on Race and Social Problems, and Rubio ( pictured, left ), the primary investigator, did not respond to emails and a phone call in the past five weeks.
In addition, the NIH’s media team did not respond to emails that had been sent in the past week or so asking about the grant and the idea of producing evidence rather than testing a hypothesis.
A group for medical reform said the concept of looking at brain scans for racism “warrants a healthy dose of skepticism.”
The idea of seeing racism in brain images is “disputed among scholars,” Do No Harm Research Director Ian Kingsbury stated in a press release to The Fix.
Kingsbury said the language used by the researchers shows they are activists, not scholars.
” Activists imagine their job as ‘ generating evidence of effectiveness,'” Kingsbury said. ” Scholars imagine their job as rigorously examining hypotheses and discovering the truth. The framing is telling”.
He criticized the use of “virus” and “vaccine” in reference to racism issues. The “racial equity” training calls racism a” social virus”. The Fix inquired about describing racial issues in medical terms.
According to Kingsbury, the use of these words “give the impression that they are engaged in rigorous science rather than activism.” ” I hope consumers of their work can spot the difference”.
MORE: NIH spends$ 136 million on racism and medicine studies
IMAGES: University of Pittsburgh
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