Introduction:

The main determinant of black women’s health is institutional racism, which is present in health services themselves. To combat it, it is necessary to understand living conditions, health and violence from the perspectives of black women.

Objective:

Analyze the perception of black women about racial inequalities in the search for health care in health units.

Method:

Descriptive-exploratory study, with a qualitative approach, carried out with 13 self-declared brown or black women; over 18 years old, members or volunteers of the Association of Women Lacemakers; or who attended Testing and Counseling Centers. Semi-structured interviews were carried out, in the institutions or digitally, with the data analyzed and interpreted through Collective Subject Discourse Analysis.

Results:

Two Collective Subject Discourses were constructed: “Understandings of Institutional Racism” and “Perceptions and Experiences of Institutional Racism in Health”, which allowed us to trace paths between theory and reality, proving the understanding of institutional racism in health care by black women and their difficulty in identifying it in their own experiences.

Conclusions:

In this way, the existence of racism in health services is perceived, accompanied by a silence that exacerbates situations of institutional racism, which urgently needs to be recognized and denounced, and only then will it be effectively combatted.

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