# Transforming Health Equity Research in Integrated Primary Care: Antiracism as a Disruptive Innovation

> **NIH NIH R01** · FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $617,346

## Abstract

Increased media attention regarding COVID-related health disparities combined with horrific
institutionalized violence against Black Americans have revitalized the call to action to address systemic racism
in health care. Among the consequences of systemic racism in health care are significant health disparities in
prevalence, diagnosis, and treatment of comorbid physical and mental health conditions. Despite decades of
studies acknowledging health disparities based on race and an increased awareness of the social
determinants of health, we seem to be lightyears away from significant change. There are shockingly few
evidence-based interventions to change racism attitudes, behaviors, and practices at the provider and
organizational-systems level. New paradigms are needed to intervene on, and not just document, racism in
health care systems. We propose to develop and test a transformative paradigm for translating basic
behavioral and social science into new anti-racism interventions for primary care settings. The paradigm is the
first of its kind to integrate community-based participatory research, systems science, diffusion of innovation
theory, and item response theory, leveraging an established framework of early phase translational behavioral
and social science to rigorously define new anti-racism interventions within complex health systems and
rigorously develop measures to assess impact. Anti-racism is a disruptive innovation in integrated primary
care systems in the United States, one that can be rigorously mapped using community-engaged systems
science methods. This map identifies “inflection points” likely to result in the most impactful intervention targets,
and then established pathways can be used to translate fundamental behavioral and social science discoveries
into new interventions at these points. Systems science modeling can then simulate potential interventions and
produce mathematical standards for intervention efficacy in future trials. This transformative paradigm will also
detail innovative methods to develop efficient and effective measurement tools to rigorously monitor outcomes.
This transformative paradigm of antiracism as a disruptive innovation will not only revolutionize health equity
interventions in integrated primary care systems but will provide a foundation for improving health care racism
in other systems.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10473783
- **Project number:** 5R01MD017404-02
- **Recipient organization:** FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Norman Bruce Anderson
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $617,346
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-08-23 → 2026-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10473783

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10473783, Transforming Health Equity Research in Integrated Primary Care: Antiracism as a Disruptive Innovation (5R01MD017404-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10473783. Licensed CC0.

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