Odontologia e racismo: a raça como influência no diagnóstico do cirurgião-dentista, uma revisão de literatura

Abstract

Prejudice presents itself as a negative tendency against or in favor of a group or person showing personal concepts and opinions that affect the judgment. In dentistry, prejudice does not appear in a very different way from the daily life of the population, and the main aspects observed in this study demonstrate an explicit pro-white bias, where many professionals and students implicitly target more invasive treatments such as extraction and limited information to patients black and brown. The literature presents data that show that there is a much higher rate of tooth extractions by blacks compared to whites, where the rate of endodontics is slightly higher, and these trends are observed by sociocultural biases that implicitly determine that blacks are poor and with little study and you will not be able to pay for a more expensive treatment. The main objective of this study is to point out what is in the literature about the influence of racism in the decision of the treatment that the dental surgeon gives to his black patients, highlighting the main consequences of racial discrimination on the epidemiological characteristics of oral health in the black population, presenting possible ways to minimize the impact of racial discrimination in the care of Afro-descendant patients. In order to describe the possible causes and ways to minimize the influence of race on the dentist's diagnosis, a bibliographic review of the national and international scientific literature was carried out in search of articles that presented research results within this theme. Articles that assessed the racist behaviors and biases of working professionals and students were selected, in addition to the gray literature that was also included. University should be a field for deconstructing social prejudices and injustices, and there should be a greater number of menus that mention racism and discrimination in the topics to be addressed in the disciplines taught during dental graduation. In addition to social disparities, where there is a growing trend of change with the social empowerment of underprivileged classes and families through participation in the economy. Inclusive public policies must be implemented as it is studied in the literature that people with more exposure to different existing ethnic groups currently have a lower tendency to prejudice than those who are not.