Investigation of health inequities tend to be examined, in human neurosciences, as biological factors at the level of the individual. In actuality, health inequities arise, due largely in part, to deep-seated structural factors. Structural inequality refers to the systemic disadvantage of one social group compared to others with whom they coexist. The term encompasses policy, law, governance, and culture and relates to race, ethnicity, gender or gender identity, class, sexual orientation, and other domains. These structural inequalities include but are not limited to social segregation, the intergenerational effects of colonialism and the consequent distribution of power and privilege. Principles to address inequities influenced by structural factors are increasingly prevalent in a subfield of the neurosciences, i.e., cultural neurosciences. Cultural neuroscience articulates the bidirectional relationship between biology and environmental contextual factors surrounding research participants. However, the operationalization of these principles may not have the intended spillover effect on the majority of human neurosciences: this limitation is the overarching focus of the present piece. Here, we provide our perspective that these principles are missing and very much needed in all human neuroscience subdisciplines to accelerate our understanding of the human brain. Furthermore, we provide an outline of two key tenets of a health equity lens necessary for achieving research equity in human neurosciences: the social determinants of health (SDoH) framework and how to deal with confounders using counterfactual thinking. We argue that these tenets should be prioritized across future human neuroscience research more generally, and doing so is a pathway to further gain an understanding of contextual background intertwined with the human brain, thus improving the rigor and inclusivity of human neuroscience research.

中文翻译：

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呼吁利用健康公平视角加速人类神经科学研究

在人类神经科学中，对健康不公平的调查往往被视为个体层面的生物学因素。实际上，健康不公平现象的产生在很大程度上是由于根深蒂固的结构性因素。结构性不平等是指一个社会群体与与之共存的其他社会群体相比的系统性劣势。该术语涵盖政策、法律、治理和文化，涉及种族、民族、性别或性别认同、阶级、性取向和其他领域。这些结构性不平等包括但不限于社会隔离、殖民主义的代际影响以及随之而来的权力和特权分配。解决受结构性因素影响的不公平现象的原则在神经科学的一个子领域（即文化神经科学）中越来越普遍。文化神经科学阐明了研究参与者周围的生物学和环境背景因素之间的双向关系。然而，这些原则的实施可能不会对大多数人类神经科学产生预期的溢出效应：这种限制是本文的首要重点。在这里，我们提出我们的观点，即这些原则在所有人类神经科学分支学科中都缺失并且非常需要，以加速我们对人脑的理解。此外，我们概述了实现人类神经科学研究公平所必需的健康公平视角的两个关键原则：健康的社会决定因素 (SDoH) 框架以及如何使用反事实思维处理混杂因素。