Implicit and Explicit Biases and the Pediatric Health Professional

The past decade has produced a growing body of research that details the negative impacts of bias and discrimination based on race and other sociodemographic categories, such as disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, language, and socioeconomic status, as well as occurring at the intersection of different categories. This chapter focuses on the effects of implicit and explicit racial biases on children and adolescents in the domains of neighborhoods and housing, education, law enforcement and the carceral system, and health care. Additionally, bias exists in pediatric health workforce diversity, with the effects of these experiences having negative consequences in clinical and academic settings. Keywords: bias, implicit bias, explicit bias