{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]],"date-time":"2026-07-13T06:10:20Z","timestamp":1783923020739,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]],"date-time":"2026-07-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1783900800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The U.S. South experiences some of the most severe and persistent health inequities in the nation, shaped by a long history of racialized structural violence in housing, healthcare, education, and the criminal legal system. At the same time, the region remains a critical site of resistance, rooted in deep traditions of community organizing that have reshaped national understandings of social injustice. Against this backdrop, the Partnership for Southern Equity launched its Community-Informed Research for Change, Learning, and Equity (CIRCLE) initiative to address an enduring and underexamined form of structural discrimination: the unequal control of research, data, and knowledge production in communities of color. Drawing on CIRCLE\u2019s ongoing landscape scan, this article interrogates the Health Disparities Research Industrial Complex (HRIC) as a site of structural violence. This article draws on the Black radical tradition of the U.S. South, recognizing the control of knowledge as historically inseparable from the project of white oppression. Situated in a region bearing the sharpest edge of racialized health inequities, while also holding the nation\u2019s deepest traditions of community-rooted resistance, this article names the mechanisms through which epistemic violence operates in the present and uplifts the community-driven strategies already emerging across the South as pathways toward a more equitable and accountable system of knowledge production.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpubh.2026.1870761","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]],"date-time":"2026-07-13T05:33:34Z","timestamp":1783920814000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The health disparities research industrial complex as structural violence: insights from the U.S. South"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Opal","family":"Gay","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Partnership for Southern Equity","place":["Atlanta, GA, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Kirsten","family":"Cook","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Partnership for Southern Equity","place":["Atlanta, GA, United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","author":"Joseph","year":"2022"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4087\/GKBE2486","volume-title":"A wake-up call for Investing in the South","author":"Abalo","year":"2024"},{"key":"ref3","volume-title":"The Story of the South is the Story of America","year":"2021"},{"key":"ref4","volume-title":"State Voting laws Roundup: 2025 in Review","year":"2025"},{"key":"ref5","volume-title":"Health Coverage by Race and Ethnicity, 2010\u20132024","year":"2025"},{"key":"ref6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"116251","DOI":"10.1016\/j.socscimed.2023.116251","article-title":"The health disparities research industrial complex","volume":"351","author":"Ezell","year":"2024","journal-title":"Soc Sci Med"},{"key":"ref7","first-page":"77","article-title":"Structural racism and health inequities","volume":"73","author":"Sharif","year":"2022","journal-title":"Annu Rev Med"},{"key":"ref8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.14452\/MR-073-04-2021-08_2","volume-title":"Not \u201cA Nation of Immigrants\u201d: Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion","author":"Dunbar-Ortiz","year":"2021"},{"key":"ref9","volume-title":"Black Americans\u2019 Views of and Engagement with Science","year":"2022"},{"key":"ref10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/23322969.2026.2640865","article-title":"Turning the university into a political actor","author":"Jungblut","year":"2026","journal-title":"Policy Rev High Educ"},{"key":"ref11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"5","DOI":"10.55504\/0884-9153.1196","article-title":"The connection between government aid and college pricing","volume":"33","author":"Long","year":"2003","journal-title":"J Stud Financ Aid"},{"key":"ref12","author":"Whitehurst","year":"2025"},{"key":"ref13","author":"Smith-Schoenwalder","year":"2025"},{"key":"ref14","volume-title":"Over 50 Universities are under Investigation as Part of Trump\u2019s Anti-DEI Crackdown","author":"Nadworny","year":"2025"},{"key":"ref15","volume-title":"Racial Health Disparities Could Widen as States Grapple with Trump Cuts, Experts Warn","author":"Hassanein","year":"2025"},{"key":"ref16","volume-title":"Interactive Map","year":"2024"},{"key":"ref17","volume-title":"From Transaction to Transformation: Three Ways Foundations Can Invest in Black-Led Nonprofits for Lasting Change","year":"2026"},{"key":"ref18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"17","DOI":"10.1089\/heq.2019.0094","article-title":"First, do no harm: why philanthropy needs to re-examine its role in reproductive equity and racial justice","volume":"4","author":"Scott","year":"2020","journal-title":"Health Equity"},{"key":"ref19","first-page":"348","article-title":"All money Ain\u2019t good money: the interest convergence principle, white philanthropy, and black education of the past and present","volume":"31","author":"James-Gallaway","year":"2019","journal-title":"Mid-West Educ Res"},{"key":"ref20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"298","DOI":"10.1080\/26883597.2021.1939766","article-title":"Shifting philanthropic engagement: moving from funding to deliberation in the eras of the COVID-19 global pandemic and black lives matter","volume":"3","author":"Kraeger","year":"2021","journal-title":"Local Dev Soc"},{"key":"ref21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"362","DOI":"10.1017\/S1742058X25100052","article-title":"Are black people philanthropists? 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