Inequalities in Health, Mental Health, and Discrimination. Part I

Racism constructs and produces racialization - differences between bodies and psyches, and establishes a hierarchical power relationship between the normalized self and the racialized “others”. Eugenics was a mandatory subject in medicine for 50 years in Europe, the USA and colonized societies, legitimizing the discrimination of blacks, the poor, uneducated people, women and young people, considered inferior in cognition and moral values, subject to segregation and elimination. Police violence, arrest and murder of discriminated people are frequent scenes in the media today. This panel includes research on why black, ethnic and migrant populations have the highest rates of morbidity, mortality, illiteracy and poverty compared to their counterparts; experience less access to health systems due to racial stereotypes in everyday interactions with health professionals, which affects their access and the quality of care, diagnosis, referral and treatments. And studies on the deleterious consequences for the health of discriminated groups, psychosocial syndromes, stress, low self-esteem, fear and a permanent state of awareness and attention to their life and safety. Experiences of racism are witnessed daily in the media, social networks, public spaces, institutions and family relationships; prejudice plays its daily aggression against blacks through silences, whispers, speeches, screams, irony, sarcasm, jokes, naturalizing the perception that they have suspicious and violent attitudes. The daily scenes of aggression and murder against blacks, indigenous people and immigrants in the media represent the persistence of eugenic beliefs, shaping structural and institutional racism and xenophobia, a relevant social determinant of inequalities in their physical and mental health.