The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is taking a proactive approach to the recommendation development process to ensure alignment with the needs of populations adversely affected by systemic racism.
On January 25, the USPSTF published the editorial The USPSTF Values Statement and Actions to Address Systemic Racism through Clinical Preventive Services in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Authored by members of the USPSTF, this editorial affirms that, while clinical preventive services improve health and wellbeing, systemic racism in the healthcare system prevents many Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic/Latino people from fully benefitting from these services. The editorial also advances a roadmap designed to address systemic racism and help eliminate health inequities.
- Consider race primarily as a social and not a biological construct and use consistent terminology throughout recommendation statements to reflect this view.
- Promote racial and ethnic diversity in addition to gender, geographic, and disciplinary diversity in membership and leadership of the USPSTF and foster a culture of diversity and inclusivity as an enduring value of the USPSTF. This will be assessed annually prior to soliciting nominations for new members and internally assigning leadership roles.
- Commission a review of the evidence, including an environmental scan and interviews with clinicians, researchers, community leaders, policy experts, other guideline developers, and patients from groups that are disproportionately affected to summarize the evidence on how systemic racism undermines the benefits of evidence-based clinical preventive services and causes preventable deaths. This will be completed by June 2021.
- Iteratively, update USPSTF methods to integrate the best evidence and consistently address evidence gaps for Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic/Latino populations. This includes measures to identify and track strategies to demonstrate progress in addressing health inequities regarding clinical preventive services.
- Use a consistent and transparent approach to communicate gaps in the evidence related to systemic racism in preventive care in Recommendation Statements and the USPSTF’s annual report to Congress. This includes an ongoing assessment of how the effects of systemic racism on the quality of the evidence and receipt of clinical preventive services perpetuate health inequities.
- Collaborate with other guideline-making bodies, professional societies, policy makers, and patient advocacy organizations on efforts to reduce the influence of systemic racism on health.
Additional information regarding USPSTF guideline development, key methods, and access to procedural manuals can be found on the USPSTF website.