Racial discrimination is a serious problem in everyday medical and nursing practice in Germany. How can healthcare facilities take effective action against it? A research consortium involving the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences Berlin now shows that it takes more than just raising awareness to counteract this effectively - structural changes are needed.
The recommendations for action are based on the research findings of the "Racism in healthcare" project at ASH Berlin (Prof. Dr. Dr. Hürrem Tezcan-Güntekin, Dr. Sibille Merz, Leman Bilgic), Fulda University of Applied Sciences (Prof. Dr. Regina Brunnett, Ksenia Meshkova) and Witten/Herdecke University (Prof. Dr. PH Patrick Brzoska, Dr. Yüce Yılmaz-Aslan, Dr. Tuğba Aksakal). They are aimed in particular at inpatient facilities and focus on central fields of action such as organizational structure and culture, communication and visual language, protection of those affected and personnel and personnel development.
The authors deliberately formulate recommendations for organizational development that is critical of racism that go beyond the usual focus on training and further education. After all, research has shown that without structurally anchored protective measures, binding processes and systematic data collection, those affected remain alone.
Reducing racism, strengthening care. Recommendations for action for inpatient healthcare facilities is now available as an open access publication on the ASH Berlin aliceOpen publication server and on Zenodo.
The research project "Racism in Healthcare" was funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR ) from 01.01.2023 to 31.12.2025.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Hürrem Tezcan-Güntekin is Professor of Interprofessional Approaches with a focus on qualitative research methods in public health at ASH Berlin.
