Title: The Health Care System as White Public Space: The Cases of TB and
AIDS
Author: Vanessa E Martinez-Renuncio
Affiliation: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Abstract: In 2004, 70% of the reported cases with AIDS and 82% of the reported cases with Tuberculosis were people of color, according to the Center for
Disease Control and Prevention. With such large percentages of the non-white community being afflicted with these diseases, it is important that we try to understand the tentative role of these conditions in precipitating unequal access and subsequent outcomes in our health care system.
While research on racial and ethnic health disparities has increased in the past twenty years, consensus has yet to be reached on what role “race” plays on the contracting of disease. While the prevalent racism model construes acts of exclusionary discrimination as a primary barrier to people of color to health care access, my research using Whiteness theory focuses on the far more benign practices of inclusionary structuring of access which tend to secure white privilege for some populations while omitting many others for factors that ostensibly appear not to be racial ones. I believe this provides a more comprehensive look at the experience of people of color in the current health care system.
Privileged access for some is a key feature of the health care problem for people of color ensuring that the current American medical system acts as white public space. My research will explore preliminary research on underlying factors including race, poverty, unequal access and the history of white privilege, white public space and white cultural practices on past and current health care programs.