Dr. Marie Plaisime is a medical sociologist and a joint National Science Foundation (NSF) post-doctoral fellow and FXB Health and Human Rights Fellow at Harvard University. As a first-generation Haitian American woman, Marie applies critical quantitative, computational, and mixed methodological (QCM) tools to detect, examine and quantify how structural racism in medicine jeopardizes healthcare delivery, access, and quality. Marie’s research investigates the mechanisms through which health is racialized by examining racial bias, race-based medicine, algorithmic bias, social movements, and health policy. This includes (1) assessing medical providers’ understanding of structural competency pedagogy and structural racism in medical education, (2) exploring how race, as a social and power construct, is used in diagnostic tools and algorithms, and (3) investigating how social media and social justice movements influence trust in healthcare systems. In addition, her work assesses the complex interactions between race, health, and the roles that physicians, nurses, medical staff, and patients play in shaping health equity.
As an NSF postdoctoral fellow, Marie is working with Dorothy Roberts to assess medical providers’ perceptions of structural competency pedagogy, race-based medicine, and structural racism in medical education. Her project entitled, Moving Beyond Bias: Structural Competency in Medical Education, seeks to enhance theories and methodological approaches on structural competency, bias, and patient-provider interactions to reduce bias and race-based learning across medical institutions.
Marie completed her PhD in Medical Sociology at Howard University and is an alumna of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Research Scholars program. Her professional experiences include research at the Association of American Medical Colleges, National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Health and Human Services. She is also a Spencer QCM Scholar. She received her MPH from Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health and BA from the University of Rochester.