Racism in Australia: a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background Racism has been identified as a major source of injustice and a health burden in Australia and across the world. Despite the surge in Australian quantitative research on the topic, and the increasing recognition of the prevalence and impact of racism in Australian society, the collective evidence base has yet to be comprehensively reviewed or meta-analysed. This protocol describes the first systematic review and meta-analysis of racism in Australia at the national level, focussing on quantitative studies. The current study will considerably improve our understanding of racism, including its manifestations and fluctuation over time, variation across settings and between groups, and associations with health and socio-economic outcomes. Methods The research will consist of a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Searches for relevant studies will focus on the social and health science databases CINAHL, PsycINFO, PubMed and Scopus. Two reviewers will independently screen eligible papers for inclusion and extract data from included studies. Studies will be included in the review and meta-analysis where they meet the following criteria: (1) report quantitative empirical research on self-reported racism in Australia, (2) report data on the prevalence of racism, or its association with health (e.g. mental health, physical health, health behaviours) or socio-economic outcomes (e.g. education, employment, income), and (3) report Australian data. Measures of racism will focus on study participants’ self-reports, with a separate analysis dedicated to researcher-reported measures, such as segregation and differential outcomes across racial/ethnic groups. Measures of health and socio-economic outcomes will include both self-reports and researcher-reported measures, such as physiological measurements. Existing reviews will be manually searched for additional studies. Study characteristics will be summarised, and a meta-analysis of the prevalence of racism and its associations will be conducted using random effects models and mean weighted effect sizes. Moderation and subgroup analyses will be conducted as well. All analyses will use the software CMA 3.0. Discussion This study will provide a novel and comprehensive synthesis of the quantitative evidence base on racism in Australia. It will answer questions about the fluctuation of racism over time, its variation across settings and groups, and its relationship with health and socio-economic outcomes. Findings will be discussed in relation to broader debates in this growing field of research and will be widely disseminated to inform anti-racism research, action and policy nationally. Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42021265115.

Identifying and filling racism data gaps in Victoria: A stocktake review

“…We may update this work, and we welcome comments and suggestions from readers (please contact the corresponding author). This review will be complemented by a systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence and effects of racism in Australia (for a study protocol see Ben et al, 2022).…”

“…We now turn to discuss examples of key findings from several major studies that collected data nationally and in Victoria since 2015. A detailed synthesis of study findings is beyond the scope of this review and is currently underway as part of a separate study (for a study protocol, see Ben et al, 2022). These examples illustrate areas where racism remains pervasive and impactful.…”

“…While several small-scale reviews and meta-analyses have focused on specific groups in Australia (Benner et al, 2018;Kairuz et al, 2020;Moodie et al, 2019), a more comprehensive study has yet to be undertaken. Our team is currently working to address this gap through a systematic review and meta-analysis (Ben et al, 2022). Additionally, the picture of racism research in Australia and Victoria remains incomplete without a review of the considerable qualitative research and data collection carried out to date, which has been beyond our scope in this review and remains for future research.…”

“…It is time that research efforts prioritise a broader, more structural understanding of racism in Australia, and ways of measuring exposure to racism indirectly. A review of researcher-reported measures of racism -such as measures of segregation and disparities affecting different groups, and of issues of access and equity -is needed (see Ben et al, 2022). To our knowledge there are at the moment only few such studies conducted in Australia (for example, Booth et al, 2012;Burnley, 1992;1994;Dunn, 1993;Hugo, 2014).…”

“…Ben, J., Elias, A., Sharples, R., Dunn, K., McGarty, C., Truong, M., Mansouri, F., Denson, N., Walton, J., & Paradies, Y., (2022). Identifying and filling racism data gaps in Victoria: A stocktake review.…”