Data Equity in Quantifying Racism
Data Equity in Quantifying Racism

Data Equity in Quantifying Racism

Research methods to study racism have pushed the fields of social sciences to edge because the most intransigent forms of ethnoracial marginalization and oppression defy the individual’s own awareness and evaluation of unfair or discriminatory treatment or attitudes. A data equity model of quantitative social sciences requires that we de-center the individual as the primary site of importance and intervention in understanding and dismantling the systems of oppression that compromise the very validity and reliability of research aimed at identifying the role of racism in sedimenting inequality into the structures of society.

Public Lectures

Friday, October 29, 2021 This event was hosted by BSOS Anti-Black Racism Initiative; Critical Race Initiative; School of Public Health; Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity Dr. Alyasah Ali Sewell Efforts to establish the science of social statistics preoccupied itself with developing methods to situate race variables as causes of social inequality. Yet, efforts to affirm the role of racism as a sociopolitical condition effectively dethroned social statistics as the superordinate describe racial/ethnic processes. As a result, students of statistics are often blind to how best to examine systemic racism; and, consequently, students of racism, race, and ethnicity are often disenchanted with statistics. This workshop will introduce methodological tools to improve the capacities of quantitative data to identify racial and ethnic inequities. Special attention is paid to assessments of the sociopolitical conditions that prescribe systemic racism as a social fact.


In the November 19, 2020 edition of our Prioritizing Equity series, leaders in public health and academia discuss the power of data in understanding health inequities and the systemic issues that cause them to persist. Topics will include COVID-19, the social and political context surrounding data and data analysis, as well as the challenges of quantifying health inequities and the structural and social determinants of health. Panel: • Maureen Benjamins, PhD, senior research fellow at the Sinai Urban Health Institute • Nancy Krieger, PhD, professor of social epidemiology in the Department of Social and Behavioral Science at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health • Alyasah Ali Sewell, PhD, associate professor of sociology at Emory University and founder and director of The Race and Policing Project Moderator: Fernando De Maio, PhD, director, research and data use, AMA Center for Health Equity

Abigail Sewell (Emory University) discusses three predictive methods for creating indicators of structural racism using mixed effects models, ranging from single-level predictions to counterfactual models. Data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and Zillow are analyzed. This lecture is the first in a three-part series titled, “The Promise of Nested Models for Critical Studies of Race and Racism.”

This talk was delivered on July 9, 2019 as part of the 2019 Hubert Blalock Lecture Series. The Blalock Lecture Series features evening talks by esteemed researchers and is offered during the ICPSR Summer Program’s four-week sessions.

For more information about the ICPSR Summer Program, visit www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog

Abigail Sewell (Emory University) introduces a technique for studying the population risks of institutional and structural racism that relies on cross-classified effects models. Data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods nested in the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act are analyzed.

This lecture is the second in a three-part series titled, “The Promise of Nested Models for Critical Studies of Race and Racism.” This talk was delivered on July 9, 2019 as part of the 2019 Hubert Blalock Lecture Series. The Blalock Lecture Series features evening talks by esteemed researchers and is offered during the ICPSR Summer Program’s four-week sessions.

For more information about the ICPSR Summer Program, visit www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog

Abigail Sewell (Emory University) provides a template for the study of multi-level intersectionality with mixed effects models, drawing on stratified and/or interactive models that can handle up to four dimensions of interactions. Data from the New York City Community Health Database nested within the New York Police Department Stop, Question, and Frisk Database are analyzed. This lecture is the third in a three-part series titled, “The Promise of Nested Models for Critical Studies of Race and Racism.”

This talk was delivered on July 11, 2019 as part of the 2019 Hubert Blalock Lecture Series. The Blalock Lecture Series features evening talks by esteemed researchers and is offered during the ICPSR Summer Program’s four-week sessions.

For more information about the ICPSR Summer Program, visit www.icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog

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