Current approaches to identifying the impacts of structural racism on human development focus on downstream consequences or developmental outcomes rather than the upstream processes that create and perpetuate those negative consequences. Yet, the hallmarks of complex problems like structural racism include feedback relationships linking factors, path dependence, dynamics, non-linear effects, time delays, counterintuitive, and policy resistance. Pollutant exposures and their resulting deleterious effects on child health and development are among the downstream effects of structural racism. System dynamics modeling, a branch of systems science, provides developmental and environmental researchers with approaches to analyze complexity and integrate evidence from multiple disciplines through a common language and visualization of systems of structural racism. In this commentary, we introduce core tenets of system dynamics modeling as means of delineating the institutional and structural processes of environmental racism from the measurable consequences to child development; highlight specific implications of system dynamics modeling for developmental sciences; use the ongoing environmental health crisis in Flint, MI as a case example of how system dynamics modeling can be used to examine the impacts of structural racism on child development.

中文翻译：

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揭示影响儿童环境健康和发展的结构性种族主义机制的系统方法


目前确定结构性种族主义对人类发展影响的方法侧重于下游后果或发展结果，而不是产生和延续这些负面后果的上游过程。然而，结构性种族主义等复杂问题的标志包括反馈关系、链接因素、路径依赖性、动态、非线性效应、时间延迟、反直觉和政策阻力。污染物暴露及其对儿童健康和发展的有害影响是结构性种族主义的下游影响之一。系统动力学建模是系统科学的一个分支，为开发和环境研究人员提供了通过通用语言和结构性种族主义系统的可视化来分析复杂性和整合来自多个学科的证据的方法。在这篇评论中，我们介绍了系统动力学建模的核心原则，作为描述环境种族主义的制度和结构过程与对儿童发展的可衡量后果的手段;强调系统动力学建模对发展科学的具体影响;以密歇根州弗林特市正在进行的环境健康危机为例，说明如何使用系统动力学建模来检查结构性种族主义对儿童发展的影响。