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Get the most interesting and important stories from the 鶹ý.The 鶹ý’s schools of medicine and social work have been awarded a $5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to test the effectiveness of the Racial Equity Consciousness Institute (RECI), an effort aimed at addressing systemic racism.
The funding will support the growth of a powerful, life-changing program, according to Doris Rubio, the director of Pitt’s and one of the key figures involved with the study and grant application process.
“One of the things I'm most excited about this study is to be able to generate evidence of the effectiveness of RECI,” said Rubio, who is also an assistant vice chancellor for clinical research education and training for the schools of the health sciences. “I think talking to people about it and how it’s changed my life is one thing, but being able to say ‘we have evidence that this works’ is super compelling.”
The research funded by this grant will focus on identifying the effectiveness of RECI training and other implicit bias trainings on diversity and retention as well as on attitudes that perpetuate systemic racism in healthcare outcomes, particularly among marginalized communities.
The outcomes of the interventions will be measured through questionnaires and functional brain imaging, or fMRIs, to look for structural brain changes before and after the intervention. This randomized trial will involve participants from 30 different schools, including Duke University, the University of Alabama and the University of Michigan.
Ron Idoko, associate director of the center on race and social problems, founded the institute in 2021 and brought it tothe Center for Race and Social Problems in Pitt’s 鶹ý of Social Work. He developed RECI over several years conducting anti-bias trainings through his previous position as program coordinator for Pitt’s OfficeforEquity,Diversity, andInclusion.
Central to RECI’s approach is the racial equity consciousness framework, which guides participants through a structured process of understanding and addressing the multifaceted nature of racism.
The training is an offshoot of a widely used and evidence-based intervention called cognitive behavioral therapy, and gives participants the reflective and communicative tools they need to engage in meaningful and sustained efforts toward racial equity.
These skills are cultivated through a series of intensive workshops that, in part, guide participants through the origins of the concept of race and introduce data-supported examples of the impacts of the concept throughout various social systems.
Then, the workshop teaches participants to use that grounded understanding to develop and embody equity-conscious behaviors including examining racial identity, addressing racial biases, building racial empathy, embracing racial diversity, gauging racial inequities, fostering racial healing and identifying opportunities to champion racial justice.
Join the fall cohort of RECI
Funded by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, this opportunity is open to Pitt students, faculty and staff. RECI cohorts that are open to the broader community will be available in the future — stay tuned for more info or contactRECI [at] pitt.eduwith any questions.
Sessions for fall 2024 will start Thursday, Oct. 3, and run through Dec. 3. .
Gauging responses before and after the workshop, Idoko said he’s received overwhelmingly positive feedback from hundreds of participants and has also seen behavioral changes firsthand.
Idoko said he feels humbled and affirmed to see RECI grow into what it is today, adding that he’s excited to work with an interdisciplinary team to further measure the outcomes of the program.
“I think one of the things we often find in this work is that there are a lot of folks who are trying to do the work of addressing racial disparities across different sectors: education, health care, the criminal justice system, economic opportunity. But it’s becoming clearer and clearer that those issues are all interconnected and not siloed,” Idoko said. “I’m grateful to be in partnership with highly renowned, well-established researchers.”
Gretchen White, assistant professor of medicine, epidemiology and clinical and translational science in the Department of Medicine and a collaborator on the NIH grant, said she is excited to explore the issue of systemic racism from a public health standpoint.
“For me, being an epidemiologist, it’s just such a great opportunity to apply my skills to something that can change the world,” White said. “When I started school in epidemiology, I think we were just starting to acknowledge that racism was a public health issue. Just to see how far we’ve come, and all of the work that we’ve done at Pitt and around the country and in the world on this topic, has been pretty great to watch.”
Photography by Aimee Obidzinski