Dra. Erin Marie Manalo-Pedro

PhD in Community Health Sciences (Education Minor)

Erin Manalo-Pedro (she/hers) generates knowledge to improve community conditions. As a scholar-activist, she studies how education may harm or heal communities of color. Her current research examines barriers to incorporating critical curriculum and humanizing pedagogy in health professions education. She uses public health critical race praxis, qualitative methods, and data science to make visible the ordinary ways that academic public health hinders health equity.

She graduated with her PhD at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health in the Department of Community Health Sciences with a minor in Education in 2024, her MPH in 2015, and her BS in computer information systems in 2008 from Cal Poly Pomona.

Informed by her experiences as the daughter of immigrants from the Zambales and Quezon provinces of the Philippines, Erin has actively served the Filipino American community in various capacities for the past 15+ years. She cofounded the Lakas Mentorship Program, the Filipinx/a/o Community Health Association, and the Orange County and Inland Empire chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society. Alongside her partner, Michael, and child, Amihan Mae, Erin works toward restoring kapwa for liberation.

Dissertation

Searching for Racial Health Equity in Schools of Public Health

Health equity refers to the goal of creating healthy communities where living is easy for everyone. We know from decades of public health research that racism is one of several impediments to health equity; we also know that current public health students should know how racism impedes health equity. What we don’t know is if public health students know how racism impedes health equity. My dissertation asked, “how are racial health equity concepts addressed in graduate education for public health?”

I designed my three-paper dissertation to count occurrences of racism discussions in schools of public health.

In the first paper, I wanted to determine what knowledge was transmitted to students by assessing conceptual coherence in course syllabi.
The second paper aimed to examine what students know by classifying abstracts for theses and dissertations (N=5,180) based on their use of race and theory.
The third paper aimed to analyze abstracts from the second paper to examine the content and contexts of when students discuss racism.

Through my dissertation, I found the following:

Regarding what schools teach, few syllabi connected racial health equity learning objectives to assigned content on racism. Out of 67 syllabi reviewed, 9% contained ‘racism’ related keywords in both learning objectives and assigned content. Of the 22 schools of public health in my sample, 64% assigned readings on racism.
Regarding what students know, mentions of race was not the norm in public health students’ abstracts from 2018-2022. In fact, 62% of students’ abstracts did not name ‘race’ related terms nor any racial groups.
Regarding the content and context when students discuss racism, 8% of abstracts named racial groups and social inequality theories. The 25 full-text dissertations that were sampled indicate varying degrees of comprehension, with 9 dissertations naming and operationalizing racism.

Through this research, I applied critical race theory in education to reveal public health norms and document a baseline of racial health equity knowledge.

Read the Abstract

Accredited schools of public health are required to prepare graduate students to competently discuss how racism undermines health equity. A systematic assessment of academic public health norms is needed to clarify how graduate education structures the profession of public health to address racial health inequities. Three aims guided my investigation of common practices of knowledge transmission and production in schools of public health: (1) to determine what is taught to students regarding racial health equity; (2) to classify students’ use of race and theory; and (3) to categorize and contextualize students’ discussions of racism. In this sequential explanatory mixed methods study of existing documents, I examined accreditation self-study reports (N=34) and course syllabi (N=67) from schools of public health (Aim 1) and public health theses and dissertations published between 2018-2022 in the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database (N=13,797 abstracts for Aim 2; N=25 full-text dissertations for Aim 3). I conducted computational text analysis to estimate keyword distributions, manual content analysis to trace racial health equity concepts, and critical race discourse analysis to interpret patterns.

Paper 1 revealed unequal exposure to race-related content. Fewer than half of the course syllabi listed learning objectives with racial health equity concepts. Two-thirds of schools of public health assigned journal articles with ‘race’ or ‘racism’. In Paper 2, 36% of abstracts from students’ dissertations and theses contained racial group and explicit theory terms; 62% omitted ‘race.’ The relative distribution of theories indicated students’ focus on proximal exposures rather than structural determinants. In Paper 3, eight percent of abstracts (N=403) contained social inequality theory and racial group terms. I identified three racism narratives within the full-text sample of dissertations: exposure to racism (N=9); potential exposure to racial inequity (N=3); and another exposure among people (N=13). Student-authors’ reflexivity and race conscious campus climates appear to promote public health research on racism. Dissertation findings can inform teaching, research, and practice approaches to racial health inequities. Exposing how everyday practices uphold white supremacist hegemony in schools of public health can accelerate the public health profession toward health equity.

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