# Outlining Shadows of Structural Racism Using Publicly Available Social Determinants of Health Data

> **NIH NIH F31** · UNIV OF MASSACHUSETTS MED SCH WORCESTER · 2024 · $48,994

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Black, Latinx, and Indigenous populations in the US face a disproportionate burden of poor
health outcomes. Progress toward eliminating gaps in health outcomes is minimal, despite
increasing investments in and awareness of health inequities. Recognizing that those inequities
are rooted in the conditions in which we live, grow, work, and learn, there has been increased
attention toward social determinants of health. In the past several years, health systems and the
federal government, through Medicare and Medicaid, have committed billions of dollars to
address health-related social needs such as housing, nutrition, and transportation. Though
increasingly recognized as the root cause of unequal mortality and disease burden, structural
racism is infrequently considered, poorly understood, and inadequately measured.
Using a structural racism framework, this study will create a neighborhood-level structural
racism effect index by compositing publicly available data. Including data about housing,
transportation, education, wealth and poverty, social cohesion, the built environment,
employment, and criminal justice, the structural racism effect index will capture broad and
interwoven effects of past and current racist policies. The index will assign a score of 0-100 to
each census tract in the US and will be tested against publicly available outcome data such as
average area life expectancy and prevalence of select health outcomes. The novel structural
racism effect index may be used to predict costs and outcomes, direct resources, and inform
decision-making about under-resourced populations. To illustrate the policy implications of a
measure for the effects of structural racism, the index will be used to characterize the Medicaid
population as a means of providing insight into where investments should be made. Using
Massachusetts as a test case, this project will quantify the extent to which structural racism's
effects modify the impact of a $149 million program to address the health-related social needs
of the Massachusetts Medicaid population.
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## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10695902
- **Project number:** 5F31MD017471-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF MASSACHUSETTS MED SCH WORCESTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Zachary Dyer
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $48,994
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-01 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10695902

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10695902, Outlining Shadows of Structural Racism Using Publicly Available Social Determinants of Health Data (5F31MD017471-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10695902. Licensed CC0.

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