Challenges of researching racism in healthcare

The unprecedented transnational protests following the killing of George Floyd highlighted the need to re-examine institutions that uphold various social injustices experienced by racialised minorities. Black Lives Matter protests thus created a serious reckoning with racism and facilitated global conversations. Against the backdrop of these protests, we evaluate our study of healthcare workers, exploring racialisation in Swedish healthcare including the design and implementation of an anti-racist initiative in healthcare education. We reflect on how the silencing of discussion around racism in Sweden led to difficulties in recruiting participants and the effect of the shift in public discourse following the Black Lives Matter uprising of 2020. The project was ultimately successful in recruitment and outreach to professional and regional authorities. However, this success is contrasted by the lack of structural change in embedding anti-racism as a core value in healthcare practice. We conclude by noting that conversations about anti-racism differ from implementing anti-racist practice in commissioning, evaluation, and service delivery.