Toward QuantCrit: Advancing Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Health Equity Research

This conceptual paper uses quantitative critical race theory (QuantCrit) principles and insights from various disciplines to offer practical guidance for conducting social work research on the racialized relationships between socioeconomic status (SES) and health outcomes. Social work is committed to social justice, with a focus on advancing racial equity in SES and health. Although the field of social work has made significant progress, centering equity in quantitative research methods is needed, specifically the use of antiracist theories to guide research. QuantCrit has emerged as a valuable tool in statistical analysis over the past 15 years but has not yet been widely adopted in social work. This paper provides an overview of the tenets of QuantCrit and how researchers can apply these theoretical concepts to statistical analyses relating SES to health. This paper calls on social work researchers to center antiracist methodological approaches in studying racial, ethnic, and SES health inequities through culturally responsive approaches that require sociopolitical consciousness.