Developing a Multilevel Measure of Structural Racism to Advance Racial Health Equity
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
12:00 PM-1:00 PM
This MERHG presentation shares initial findings from a project to develop an
intersectional, multilevel measure of structural racism.
Current tools fail to
integrate ecological and individual-level data, focus on Black and
Hispanic/Latino communities, or involve meaningful community engagement.
Our
approach combines ecological determinants of health disparities with an item
bank co-created with community members who have experienced racism. The goal is
a publicly available tool that captures the complexity of structural racism and
supports interventions to reduce racial health inequities.
Ester Villalonga-Olives, PhD, MSc, is an Associate Professor at the
University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and a social epidemiologist
specializing in psychometrics and health inequalities. Her work spans India,
Cuba, and Europe, and focuses on social determinants, unfair treatment, and
culturally relevant measurement tools. She leads an NIH R01 on multilevel
measures of unfair treatment and studies on cancer screening and health
literacy for Hispanic/Latino populations. She is co-investigator in projects
addressing mental health and decision-making maternity care. She serves on
national and international committees, and was part of the inaugural NIH Early
Investigators Advancement Program.
Co-presenting with Dr. Villalonga-Olives will be two post-doctoral fellows:
Dr. Sara Daniel and Dr. Zonggui Li
Zoom registration
Contact Information
Annelies Smilde
as6332@drexel.edu