The white hawk was described by John Latham: in English (1787) as the "white-necked falcon",[4] and in Latin (1790) as Falco albicollis,[5] with locality "Cayenne".

[6] In his Genera of Birds, Gray treats them both as Buteos, listing B. albicollis in the main text and B. pæcilonotus in the index.

[7] During the 20th century, some authors treated the grey-backed hawk occidentalis as a subspecies of L. albicollis, whilst others recognized it as a separate species.

[8] In the first decade of the 2000s Leucopternis was found to be polyphyletic, and in 2012 the American Ornithologists' Union separated the white hawk and its relatives under the old name Pseudaster.

[9] DNA analysis found that the subspecies P. a. albicollis is sister to P. a. polionotus, and the trans-Andean P. a. ghiesbreghti and P. a. costaricensis are more closely related to P. occidentalis than they are to P. a.

A widespread species, it is usually not common, but the IUCN considers it not to be globally threatened due to the large extent of its range.

[10][11][12] Researchers have documented the white hawk feeding on a number of bird species including the keel-billed toucan, the mottled owl, the white-breasted wood wren and the great tinamou.