Structural Racism, Housing, and Intimate and Sexual Violence: A Scoping Review

Purpose: A better understanding of the role of structural racism (SR) in the lives of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color who identify as female (BIPOC women) is of critical concern, particularly as it relates to public health crises that disproportionately affect female-identifying people. Specifically, a better understanding of SR in the lives of BIPOC women who survive intimate partner and/or sexual violence (IP/SV) is necessary to inform tailored multi-level interventions. However, SR is inconsistently operationalized, and extant literature has yet to be synthesized. These gaps place the development of intervention research, and thus the lives of many BIPOC women, in jeopardy. This study's purpose was to conduct a scoping review to clarify inconsistencies, identify additional gaps, and synthesize the literature.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted with a focus on three concepts: SR, housing policy, and IP/SV against BIPOC women. Seven academic databases were searched in addition to Google Scholar. English-language peer-reviewed and grey literature published between 2005-2023 were systematically identified, screened, and charted by a four-person team.

Findings: Of 4,463 titles initially identified, the final sample included fifteen documents (13 peer-reviewed, 2 grey literature). Studies were cross-sectional and utilized various methods including qualitative (n=6), mixed (n=2), quantitative (n=1) and policy reviews/analyses (n=6). SR was clustered in three themes, the largest of which was disproportionality (n=9) which refers to uneven distribution of burden or benefits of policies.

Conclusion: Using Krieger’s (2020) measurement schema, studies were classified based on whether SR was examined at the structural or individual level, and whether SR was measured explicitly, nonexplicitly, or using area-based indices. By imposing structure on extant literature, we pinpointed an intuitive underlying contributor to inconsistent conceptualization and measurement of SR: The execution and experience of SR rarely occur at the same socioecological level. We also identified a significant gap in the literature: often, SR was not meaningfully incorporated or discussed. We found several instances in which SR was invoked haphazardly (e.g., SR mentioned only in the introduction). Given these findings, we suggest ecological and antiracist frameworks can help demonstrate that individual outcomes may be explained by SR in macro, mezzo, and individual structures.