The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health
Bibliographic Data
This Policy Statement was reaffirmed August 2025. The American Academy of Pediatrics is committed to addressing the factors that affect child and adolescent health with a focus on issues that may leave some children more vulnerable than others. Racism is a social determinant of health that has a profound impact on the health status of children, adolescents, emerging adults, and their families. Although progress has been made toward racial equality and equity, the evidence to support the continued negative impact of racism on health and well-being through implicit and explicit biases, institutional structures, and interpersonal relationships is clear. The objective of this policy statement is to provide an evidence-based document focused on the role of racism in child and adolescent development and health outcomes. By acknowledging the role of racism in child and adolescent health, pediatricians and other pediatric health professionals will be able to proactively engage in strategies to optimize clinical care, workforce development, professional education, systems engagement, and research in a manner designed to reduce the health effects of structural, personally mediated, and internalized racism and improve the health and well-being of all children, adolescents, emerging adults, and their families.
Adolescent health · Affect (linguistics) · Economic growth · Health care · Health equity · Institutional racism · Interpersonal communication · Public health · Race and health · Racism · Social determinants of health · Sociology · Workforce · Child and Adolescent Health · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations · Gender Studies · Medicine · Nursing · Psychology · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research · Social Psychology
Got Skillz? Recasting and Negotiating Racial Tension in Teacher-Student Relationships Amidst Shifting Demographics
Re-Imagining Child and Youth Care Practice With African Canadian Youth
Multiple Marginalized Identities, Minority Stress, and Mental Health
The Relationship between Health Disparities, Psychosocial Functioning and Health Outcomes in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and Stem Cell Transplant Populations
Material Hardship and Stress from Covid-19 in Immigrant Chinese American Families with Infants
I Don't Know Why I Feel So Bad Being Asian
Toxic pathways
Elucidating linkages of executive functioning to school readiness skill gains
Scientific inquiry of race, ethnicity, and racial inequality in Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Early relational health – A promising approach for equitable systems change in pediatrics
Toward racial justice in linguistics
The Roles of Settings in Supporting Immigrants’ Resistance to Injustice and Oppression
The prefrontal cortex in a pandemic
Healthcare Utilization for Medicaid-Insured Children with Medical Complexity
Intersecting Structural Oppression and Suicidality Among Black Sexual Minority Male Adolescents and Emerging Adults
Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Impacts of Racism on the Foundations of Health
Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Obesity
Policy Statement
Effects of Racism on Child Development
The effects of social isolation stress and discrimination on mental health
The Death of George Floyd
The Two Pandemics
Anticipation of racially motivated police brutality and youth mental health
Covid-19 and Children’s Well-Being
Inaction Is Not an Option
Combining attachment-based family therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy to improve outcomes for adolescents with anxiety
Integrating Health and Educational Perspectives to Promote Preschoolers’ Social and Emotional Learning
Factors associated with loss to follow up among HIV-exposed children
Predictors of Depressive Symptoms in Caregivers of Children With Poorly Controlled Asthma
Mama’s is like a second mom
The impact of the pandemic on mothers and children, with a focus on syndemic effects on black families
Help! My teacher is racist
Impact of Donor Human Milk in an Urban Nicu Population
Reframing the early childhood obesity prevention narrative through an equitable nurturing approach
The Role of Resilience in Ethnic Minority Adolescent Navigation of Ecological Adversity
Training the MCH workforce
Promoting Kindergarten Readiness in Primary Care
A Wake-Up Call
Promoting proactive bystander responses to racism and racial discrimination in primary schools
Structural racism and Covid-19 response
LGBTQ+ Students’ Peer Victimization and Mental Health before and during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Examining School Based Health Service Utilization Among Marginalized Youth in Connecticut During Covid
School (socie)ties
Discrimination and Health
Attending to the Adversity of Racism Against Young Black Children
Amplifying the Encounters of Young Black Children with Anti-Black Racism
A global review of racial, ethnic and socio-economic disparities in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children related to Covid-19
The implications of socioeconomic factors on salivary bioscience methodological variables in a large pediatric multi-site study
Optimizing health services for young children in poverty
Witnessing and Experiencing Discrimination
Racial and Language Microaggressions in the School Ecology
Parents’ Role in Addressing Children’s Racial Bias
An Ethics and Social-Justice Approach to Collecting and Using Demographic Data for Psychological Researchers
Complex Racial Trauma
“I Can Never Feel Safe”
Prospective Associations of Discrimination, Race, and Sexual Orientation with Substance Use in Adolescents
Validation of the Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY) Scale in Pittsburgh
Impact of belonging and discrimination on psychological well-being among transitioning adults
The Efficacy of Juvenile Court Supervision in Addressing Youth Risks and Needs
Roadmap for Trauma-Informed Medical Education
Moving Beyond Implicit Bias in Antiracist Academic Medicine Initiatives
Trauma-Informed Medical Education (Time)
Race in the Reading
Supports to Improve Academic Outcomes With Racially and Ethnically Minoritized Youth
Examining Mentors’ In-the-Moment Observations of Youth-Related Concerns Within an After School Mentoring Program
Toddler behavior problems amid household chaos
College Student Mental Health Is Stable Across College Career, but Declining Over Time
Cyberbullying Among Asian American Youth Before and During the Covid ‐19 Pandemic
Biocultural and social determinants of ill health and early mortality in a New Mexican paediatric autopsy sample
How age and race affect the frequency, timing, and content of conversations about race with children
Engaging White parents to address their White children's racial biases in the Black-White context
Advancing scholarship on anti-racism within developmental science
Exploring adolescent‐adult connections, coping, and safety among minoritized youth in neighborhoods impacted by community violence
Intersectional stigma and developmental competence among youth living with HIV
After Castañeda
Caring for children in foster and kinship care during a pandemic
Community‐Based Doulas and Covid ‐19
Parents’ differential attitudes toward children’s media use by race and anxiety about children’s futures
Fifteen-year trends in self-reported racism and link with health and well-being of African Canadian adolescents
Black college women’s lived memories of racialization in predominantly white educational spaces
Racial oases as spaces of positive racial identity socialization among African Canadian post-secondary students
Provider, Heal Thy System
Equitable access to agency-supportive early schooling contexts for young children of color
Interrogating the role of anti-Blackness in the early care and education experiences of Black children and families
A place where my children could learn to read, write, and play’
Reexamining the Carolina Abecedarian Project using an antiracist perspective
Early childhood predictors of black children's achievement
Asian and Asian American early educators’ racial discrimination experiences and student well-being during Covid-19
Parent's ethnic-racial socialization practices in families with young children experiencing homelessness
Cortisol across preschool day relates to teacher ratings of executive functioning for children facing economic hardship
Introduction to the Supplemental Issue
Graduate Student Experience Learning About Racism
Why Don’t They Just Move Closer?”
Narratives of Puerto Rican Middle School Students Regarding School Context and Identity
A Critical Race Theory of Psychology as Praxis
Sleep Problems and Drinking Frequency among Urban Multiracial and Monoracial Adolescents
Through the looking glass
The Theory of Racial Socialization in Action for Black Adolescents and Their Families
Storytelling as Art and Intervention
Assessing the impact of religious values on social bonds among African American adults
The Myth of Race
Racism and Child Health
Poverty and Child Health in the United States
Early teacher perceptions and later student academic achievement.
Ethnic and Racial Identity in Adolescence
The Impact of Perceived Racism
Exploring the social determinants of racial/ethnic disparities in prenatal care utilization and maternal outcome
Chronic stress, glucocorticoid receptor resistance, inflammation, and disease risk
Bullying Among Young Adolescents
The Influence of Racial Socialization Practices on the Cognitive and Behavioral Competence of African American Preschoolers
Discrimination, Other Psychosocial Stressors, and Self-Reported Sleep Duration and Difficulties
Racial Disparities in Child Adversity in the U.S.
Comparison of two community alternatives to incarceration for chronic juvenile offenders.
The impact of incarceration on juvenile offenders
Racial Disparities in Pain Management of Children With Appendicitis in Emergency Departments
Adolescence and the social determinants of health
Invited Commentary
Social Determinants and Sexually Transmitted Disease Disparities
Who believes in me? The effect of student–teacher demographic match on teacher expectations
The teacher-child relationship and children's early school adjustment
Cultural Humility Versus Cultural Competence
Racism as a Determinant of Health
Black Power
Crime and Inequality
The Development of Consciousness of Self and the Emergence of Racial Identification in Negro Preschool Children
Racial differences in birth outcomes
From slavery to freedom
Literature Review of the National CLAS Standards
Race and Genetics
Transmitting Trauma
Implicit Racial/Ethnic Bias Among Health Care Professionals and Its Influence on Health Care Outcomes
Black Lives Matter
The bystander-effect
The Association of Incarceration with Community Health and Racial Health Disparities
Social and Behavioral Determinants of Self‐Reported STD Among Adolescents
Closing the Achievement Gap
White, European, Western, Caucasian, or what? Inappropriate labeling in research on race, ethnicity, and health
The impact of stress on the life history strategies of African American adolescents
Replicated Evidence of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Disability Identification in U.S. Schools
Barriers to Care Among American Indians in Public Health Care Programs
The Implicit Prejudiced Attitudes of Teachers
Blacks’ Death Rate Due to Circulatory Diseases Is Positively Related to Whites’ Explicit Racial Bias
Perceptions of Racism in Children and Youth (PRaCY)
Estimating the mental health costs of racial discrimination
Defining, conceptualizing and characterizing racism in health research
A Life Course Perspective on How Racism May Be Related to Health Inequities
Social Adversity, Stress, and Alcohol Problems
Discrimination, Racial Identity, and Cytokine Levels Among African-American Adolescents
The Influence of Ethnic Discrimination and Ethnic Identification on African American adolescents' School and Socioemotional Adjustment
Calling Out Implicit Racial Bias as a Harm in Pediatric Care
Racism, the Immigration Enforcement Regime, and the Implications for Racial Inequality in the Lives of Undocumented Young Adults
The Schedule of Racist Events
How American Children Spend Their Time
Racism, disadvantage and multiculturalism
Structural Racism and Health Inequities
If they think I can
Does it matter if teachers and schools match the student? Racial and ethnic disparities in problem behaviors
| Unique citing works | 154 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 25,67 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 141 |