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Medical sociologists and social epidemiologists have led the way in the beginning to understand the magnitude and various manifestations of how racism is a public health issue leading to shorter lives and more illness and disease (e.g., Geronimus 1992; Krieger 2020; Williams and Mohammed 2013). For example, David and Collins (1997) have demonstrated how growing up in a racist society, rather than genetics, is related to low birth weight, and by extension, infant mortality. They show that the birth weights of babies born in African-born women are more like the birth weights of babies born to white women than black women who grew up in the United States.

Social epidemiologists have recently developed a number of interview guides and questionnaires that assess recent acts and perceptions of racism, racial discrimination and harassment, and implicit biases (for an excellent summary of this literature, see Karlsen and Nazoo 2008). In general, epidemiologists attempt to develop methods that are valid across context, in a universal way, but these instruments can miss the important sociocultural context of words, gestures, and actions. As well, most measures of racism focus on interpersonal issues and miss connections to the historic and structural features of the political economy of racism.