The National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences is pleased to announce the publication of "The Science of Research on Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Health," a supplement to the American Journal of Public Health (May 2012; 102(5):930-1034). The theme issue aims to highlight the need for and state of empirical research on racial/ethnic discrimination and its association with the health and health care received by racial/ethnic minority populations.

The issue’s themed section opens with an article that reviews current measures, research approaches, data resources, and results of research on race/ethnicity-based health care discrimination. Subsequent articles center on issues of measurement, implicit bias, perception of discrimination and institutional racism. Several of the articles were written by presenters from a 2011 conference that examined the research and research methods used for investigating the role of racial/ethnic discrimination in health.

This theme issue illustrates the state of the field, describes current methodology, identifies research gaps and suggests areas that should be considered for future research. The issue will serve as a valuable resource for researchers in this topic area and will help position researchers, policy makers, and professionals at all levels of health care to address the effects of discrimination in the evolving health care environment. For more information about three of the articles that appear in the issue, read the American Journal of Public Health news release.

After May 1, 2012, a single printed copy of the issue may be ordered online from the NCI Publications Locator.

The full text of each article is available free of charge at the links below.

• Research on Race/Ethnicity and Health Care Discrimination: Where We Are and Where We Need to Go (editorial) [Full text]
• The Lived Experience of Race and Its Health Consequences [Full text]
• Methods for the Scientific Study of Discrimination and Health: An Ecosocial Approach [Full text]
• Under the Radar: How Unexamined Biases in Decision-Making Processes in Clinical Interactions Can Contribute to Health Care Disparities [Full text]
• The State of Research on Racial/Ethnic Discrimination in The Receipt of Health Care [Full text]
• A Life Course Perspective on How Racism May Be Related to Health Inequities [Full text]
• Research on Discrimination and Health: An Exploratory Study of Unresolved Conceptual and Measurement Issues [Full text]
• The Associations of Clinicians' Implicit Attitudes About Race With Medical Visit Communication and Patient Ratings of Interpersonal Care [Full text]
• The Influence of Implicit Bias on Treatment Recommendations for 4 Common Pediatric Conditions: Pain, Urinary Tract Infection, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Asthma [Full text]
• Implicit Stereotyping and Medical Decisions: Unconscious Stereotype Activation in Practitioners' Thoughts About African Americans [Full text]
• An Experimental Investigation of Possible Memory Biases Affecting Support for Racial Health Care Policy [Full text]
• Perceived Discrimination and Longitudinal Increases in Adolescent Substance Use: Gender Differences and Mediational Pathways [Full text]
• Self-Reported Experience of Racial Discrimination and Health Care Use in New Zealand: Results From the 2006/07 New Zealand Health Survey [Full text]
• Discrimination and the Stress Response: Psychological and Physiological Consequences of Anticipating Prejudice in Interethnic Interactions [Full text]
• Experiences and Perceptions of Medical Discrimination Among a Multiethnic Sample of Breast Cancer Patients in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area, California [Full text]