Project 459120

Anti-Black racism has negative impact on the health and wellbeing of Black communities in Canada. The COVID-19 pandemic and global uprisings for racial justice have raised awareness of the lack of concerted policy action to address anti-Black racism and health inequities experienced by Black communities. This has been accompanied by debates on the collection and use of data on health and social outcomes by racial identity (race-based data). These debates offer contesting views on the value of race-based data, what the presence or absence of this data does, and the role data may play in policy making. Calls for race-based data generally reflect ideas of evidence-informed policy making which suggests that evidence of problems and solutions are needed to drive policy decisions. However, current evidence on health inequities has not led to significant policy action with policy action usually observed where there is a strong relationship between knowledge, policy communications and Black community advocacy. As a result, past research has called for a greater focus on the role of power, politics and ideology in policymaking. Using critical race theory, I will research the relationships between evidence on racial health inequalities and policymaking in public health in this changing policy context. I will interview policy makers, researchers and Black health organizations and social movements, and analyse policy documents to examine how race, anti-Black racism and racial health inequities are constructed in public health policymaking in Canada. In doing so, I will explore how the proofs of racial inequities (race-based data) that evidence-informed policy making demands may be tool to hide the lack of policy action to eliminate racial health inequities created by anti-Black racism. My research will provide insight on how to influence policy change to reduce and eliminate the profound racial inequities that exist in social life with direct and fatal impacts on health.