University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Health Disparities Research, Madison, WI, USA.
University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, Madison, WI, USA.
Gerontologist. 2022 May 26;62(5):711-720. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnab107.
Meaningful reductions in racial and ethnic inequities in chronic diseases of aging remain unlikely without major advancements in the inclusion of minoritized populations in aging research. While sparse, studies investigating research participation disparities have predominantly focused on individual-level factors and behavioral change, overlooking the influence of study design, structural factors, and social determinants of health on participation. This is also reflected in conventional practices that consistently fail to address established participation barriers, such as study requirements that impose financial, transportation, linguistic, and/or logistical barriers that disproportionately burden participants belonging to minoritized populations. These shortcomings not only risk exacerbating distrust toward research and researchers, but also introduce significant selection biases, diminishing our ability to detect differential mechanisms of risk, resilience, and response to interventions across subpopulations. This forum article examines the intersecting factors that drive both health inequities in aging and disparate participation in aging research among minoritized populations. Using an intersectional, social justice, and emancipatory lens, we characterize the role of social determinants, historical contexts, and contemporaneous structures in shaping research accessibility and inclusion. We also introduce frameworks to accelerate transformative theoretical approaches to fostering equitable inclusion of minoritized populations in aging research.
如果不能在将少数族裔纳入老龄化研究方面取得重大进展，要想大幅减少老龄化相关慢性病方面的种族和族裔不平等问题，仍然不太可能。尽管研究很少，但调查研究参与差异的研究主要集中在个人层面的因素和行为改变上，而忽略了研究设计、结构性因素和健康的社会决定因素对参与的影响。这也反映在传统做法中，这些做法始终未能解决既定的参与障碍，例如研究要求造成经济、交通、语言和/或后勤方面的障碍，这些障碍不成比例地给属于少数族裔的参与者带来负担。这些缺陷不仅有可能加剧人们对研究和研究人员的不信任，而且还会引入严重的选择偏差，从而降低我们检测不同亚人群中风险、适应力和对干预措施反应的不同机制的能力。本文从交叉的角度审视了导致老龄化健康不平等和少数族裔参与老龄化研究差异的因素。我们采用交叉、社会公正和解放的视角，描述社会决定因素、历史背景和当代结构在塑造研究可及性和包容性方面的作用。我们还介绍了一些框架，以加速促进少数族裔在老龄化研究中公平参与的变革性理论方法。
