Sinai Health Bioethics Grand Rounds | Virtual

Topic

Building a foundation to identify and address systemic racism in health-care settings 

Speaker

Dr. Andrew Pinto, MD, CCFP, FRCPC, MSc 
Upstream Lab, MAP/Centre for Urban Health Solutions, St. Michael’s Hospital 
Department of Family and Community Medicine, St. Michael’s Hospital 
Department of Family and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto 
Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto 
University of Toronto Practice-Based Research Network (UPLEARN) 

Abstract

Despite near-universal health insurance, people across Canada continue to experience differential access, quality and health outcomes. Community organizations, advocates and researchers have long identified that systemic racism occurs in Canadian health-care settings. In this presentation we will explore the task of building a foundation to identify and address systemic racism in health care. We will provide evidence from research from the Upstream Lab, conducted with numerous colleagues and collaborators, on the role of social data collection, existing evidence on interventions, and early results from co-design efforts. While this will likely raise more questions than answers, this exploration is important to moving our health-care systems towards upstream actions, including tackling systemic racism. 

By the end of this session, attendees will be:

• Aware of efforts to standardize social data collection using the SPARK Tool, and be able to describe the challenges, preconditions and considerations when embarking on social data collection.
• More aware of the existing evidence on interventions to address systemic racism in health-care settings.