Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

5-2024

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences

Degree Program

Public Health Sciences with a specialization in Health Promotion, PhD

Committee Chair

Wendel, Monica, L.

Committee Member

Jones, Gaberiel Jr.

Committee Member

Powell, Cedric Merlin

Committee Member

Ruther, Matthew H.

Committee Member

Howard, Natasha

Committee Member

Ruther, Matt

Author's Keywords

health equity; voter suppression; black health; critical discourse analysis

Abstract

Political systems in the United States have contributed to health outcomes in the through the historic and legal doctrine related to race and racism, segregation, housing, employment, and education. In recent years, significant attention has been given to theorizing the political determinants of health and what it means in the overall conversation about health equity. The equity implications of the political determinants of health are innumerable because they are the origin point of the structural determinants of health and the primary drivers of the social determinants of health, which span from environmental conditions to food security. The focal determinant of health for this study is voting and the political exclusion of Black communities through voter suppression. Though an emerging field of study within public health, it is understood that the connection between political institutions and the distribution of population health is important because it helps to situate risk factors such as civic engagement as a significant exposure of interest to health outcomes, because every health inequity can be traced back to a political action or inaction. As political exclusion in the American political system is best understood within the larger context of the embedded ideologies of white supremacy, this study approaches voter suppression from the lens of power, language, and narrative. This dissertation follows a traditional format and includes five chapters, covering the introduction, literature review, method, results, and discussion. That said, the structure is as follows: Chapter 1 provides general background information on public health’s transition from the biomedical model towards more structural and political determinants of health, such as exclusionary voting policies and practice. Chapter 2 applies a sociohistorical lens in the synthesis of literature regarding the political determinants of health, and political exclusion in the larger context of American political violence. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the methodological approaches utilized in this study. Chapter 4 presents the analytic approaches, and Chapter 5 provides implications this study has on the future of public health research, policy, and practice. The purpose of this study was to critically examine how white supremacy and social inequality are reproduced through language, and the relationships between language, policymaking, and power. The study also sought to examine how political oppression is situated within the larger context of white supremacy. Employing critical discourse analysis and ideological critique, several discourses were analyzed: (1) white supremacist propaganda circulating between the years of 1914-2020 and (2) political discourses regarding restrictive voting policies proposed or enacted between 2008-2020. While the results of this study do not identify voter suppression as having a causal relationship with physical health outcomes, the findings do suggest that exclusionary voting practices and policies significantly contribute to the inequitable distribution of power, resources, and capital necessary for healthy living. More significantly, the findings from this study indicate that the anti-Black racism so deeply entrenched in exclusionary voting policies closely resembles the language and sentiment of white supremacist ephemera.

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Available for download on Monday, November 11, 2024

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