Behind the Paper: Insufficient: A scoping review of structural racism and intimate partner violence in US-based immigrant communities of color

Today we talk with the authors of a recently published study in PLOS Global Public Health, Insufficient: A scoping review of structural racism and intimate partner violence in US-based immigrant communities of color, by Samantha Kanselaar, Sameera S. Nayak, PhD, Rochelle R Davidson-Mhonde, PhD, Areej Khan, Kyle Machicado, MPH, and Jhumka Gupta, ScD, MPH

What led you to decide on this research question?

Intimate partner violence against women (hereafter, IPV) remains a critical public health issue, with more than one in three women having experienced at least one form of IPV in their lifetime in the US and globally. Despite decades of efforts toward addressing IPV in the US, progress remains uneven, particularly among US-based immigrant communities of color who continue to experience high levels of IPV and its harmful repercussions. These persistent inequities raise important questions about whether current prevention and intervention approaches are effective among US-based immigrant communities.

In other areas of public and immigrant health, research has demonstrated how structural racism is a determinant of health inequities, shaping access to resources, exposures to risk, and health outcomes across populations. Many of the risk factors associated with structural racism and health inequities among US-based immigrants are well-documented determinants of IPV (e.g., economic marginalization, housing instability, and legal precarity). This suggests that IPV risk may also be shaped by multiple interrelated systems of oppression and power, like structural racism and immigration, in addition to gender inequity. However, little attention has been given to how structural racism may shape IPV risk among US-based immigrant communities of color. To better understand this landscape, we conducted a scoping review to map how structural racism is conceptualized, named, and attributed within the IPV literature and to identity key gaps that can inform future IPV research and intervention efforts for immigrant communities of color.

Could you talk us through how you designed your study? What was important for your team as you created the study team?

Our study drew on frameworks developed by Black and transnational feminist, critical race, and immigrant health scholars, whose work has been foundational in examining how structural racism shapes health inequities among minoritized populations. Grounding our study in these frameworks was critical to ensuring that we examined IPV as a consequence of multiple interrelated systems of oppression and power such as structural racism and immigration systems, in addition to gender inequity. These frameworks guided how we defined structural racism, interpreted our findings, identified gaps in the literature, and provided recommendations for future work.

We utilized a scoping review approach to systematically map how structural racism has been named, operationalizes, and attributed in IPV literature focused on US-Based immigrants of color. This approach provides an evidence-based foundation for identifying research gaps and prioritizing future directions, which is particularly important in emerging fields like structural racism and IPV in US-based immigrant communities. The value of scoping reviews in advancing knowledge is well-documented in other fields examining structural racism as a determinant of health inequities. For example, scoping reviews have played a pivotal role in identifying gaps and shaping research agendas in diabetes, lung cancer, immigrant mental health, and broader public health. These reviews have catalyzed further research by offering clear, evidence-based insights into existing gaps and establishing frameworks for future inquiry.

In building our team, we brought together collaborators with expertise in structural racism, violence against women and girls and immigrant health, as well as diverse racial, ethnic, and immigrant backgrounds. All team members work in close partnership with immigrant communities of color as well. The team was therefore critical in shaping how we approached the study, ensuring that our framing, interpretation, and future recommendations did not reproduce harmful dominant narratives.

What challenges did you encounter during your study?

 One of the biggest challenges that we encountered was that at first, only one study met our initial study criteria for inclusion in the review: the study needed to have attributed and name structural racism as a determinant of IPV experiences. At the same time, we identified several studies that attributed their findings to terms that aligned with our conceptualization of structural racism, but they did not explicitly name it. As a team, we felt it was important to create space to critically engage with these studies while also highlighting the implications of not naming their attributions as structural racism directly. This led us to pivot from our initial approach and develop tiered categories for inclusion. Ultimately, this shift strengthened our study by allowing us to capture a broader gap in how structural racism is examined and named in IPV literature focused on US-based immigrants of color.

What did you find most striking about your results? How will this research be used?

The most striking finding was that only one study explicitly named and attributed structural racism as a determinant of IPV experiences among U.S.-based immigrants of color. This finding underscores how much work is still yet to be done to address IPV among US-based immigrant communities of color.

Gender inequity is the most critical system of oppression for IPV and therefore understandably a central focus in IPV literature that has led to valuable insights and significant progress in the field. At the same time, gender inequity does not operate in isolation when it comes to immigrant communities of color. Intersectionality guides us to interrogate how multiple and mutually reinforcing systems of oppression and power (e.g., gender inequality, structural racism, immigration systems), shape risk and exposure. For US-based immigrant communities of color, structural racism and immigration systems may compound gender inequity to increase risk and exposure to IPV and its harmful repercussions. An example of this is concerns about immigrant women seeking IPV services in light of heightened harmful activity from ICE. Thus, focusing on multiple and overlapping systems of oppression and power (gender inequity and structural racism) is needed to fully capture the complex realities shaping survivors’ experiences.

What further research questions need to be addressed in this area?

Several important research questions emerged from this work. First, how can we move the field toward explicitly conceptualizing and incorporating structural racism as a fundamental component in IPV research, especially among US-based immigrant communities of color. To do this work, in addition to rigorous qualitative research, there is a critical need for IPV and immigration variables to be ethically and safely collected as part of nationally representative datasets. Dedicated funding is also urgently needed to support rigorous and community engaged research that examines structural racism and IPV among US-based immigrant communities of color. Additionally, more research is needed to understand the mechanisms through which structural racism shapes IPV experiences. For example, how do immigration enforcement, economic marginalization, and limited access to services interact with gender inequity to influence vulnerability to IPV and its harmful repercussions? Finally, future work should examine how these systems operate across different immigrant groups and contexts, and how they shape both risk and access to support.

Why did you choose PLOS Global Public Health as a venue for your article?

We chose PLOS Global Public Health because of its strong commitment to equity, open access, and amplifying research that centers structural determinants of health. Given our studies focus on structural racism and IPV among US-based immigrant communities of color, it was important to publish in a journal that prioritizes global and equity-oriented perspectives, even within US-based contexts. The journal’s emphasis on on accessibility and broad dissemination also aligns with our goal of ensuring our work reaches beyond academia.

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