COLLECT RACE DATA TO ADDRESS HEALTH INEQUITIES

Collecting data on racial and Indigenous identity at health card application and renewal can help address health inequities that Indigenous and racialized patients can experience, suggests a group of authors in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

“Although race is a social construct that uses perceived physical differences to create and maintain power differentials and the existence of discrete racial groups has not been shown to have any biological basis, perceived race influences how people are treated by individuals and institutions,” wrote Dr. Andrew Pinto, founder of Upstream Lab based at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, part of Unity Health Toronto hospital network, along with coauthors. The authors suggest the following:

Asking about race and Indigenous identity in a safe and transparent manner

Guarding against potential bias or race corrections by providing antiracism training

Ensuring that race or Indigenous identity is not visible on health cards

Ensuring that data are not interpreted or presented in a way that reinforces racism and discrimination

Legislating laws that protect communities so that health data are not used to draw broad conclusions about communities

Supporting Indigenous, Black and racialized communities to lead data collection and analysis with data sovereignty and governance frameworks

“Racism in Canada’s health care systems continues to lead to injustice, but data that would assist in tracking progress and ensuring accountability are lacking or inadequate,” the authors conclude.