{"id":94808,"date":"2024-08-06T14:20:21","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T18:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=94808"},"modified":"2024-09-01T09:54:20","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T13:54:20","slug":"opinion-sonia-anand-sujane-kandasamy-and-upton-allen-discuss-health-equity-lessons-from-the-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2024\/08\/opinion-sonia-anand-sujane-kandasamy-and-upton-allen-discuss-health-equity-lessons-from-the-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: Sonia Anand, Sujane Kandasamy and Upton Allen discuss health equity lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece written by Sonia Anand, Associate Vice-President of Global Health at McMaster University; Sujane Kandasamy, Postdoctoral Fellow at Brock University; and Upton Allen, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto, originally appeared in The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the critical need for robust and equitable public health systems in Canada that address the population\u2019s diverse needs. One of the most glaring issues during the pandemic was the\u00a0lack of standardized definitions and consistent data collection methods\u00a0regarding ethnicity and race within the health system. This gap was particularly evident in the discrepancies between federal and provincial systems.<\/p>\n

The importance of data collection<\/strong><\/p>\n

During the pandemic, timely and accurate data on COVID-19 infectivity rates among different ethnic and racialized groups were insufficient. This hindered efforts to identify hotspots and effectively prioritize increased opportunities for testing and vaccinations.<\/p>\n

The absence of such data reflects a broader issue: the need for structured and formalized data collection practices for public health purposes that do not depend on provincial priorities.<\/p>\n

Currently, data collection varies across regions. Public health systems often do not collect self-reported ethnicity and race in a standardized and safe manner. They may not have digitized vaccine records, and often lack access to comprehensive health-care system data.<\/p>\n

To be prepared for future epidemics, these gaps in the public health system must be addressed. As physicians and research experts we suggest the following \u201cprescription,\u201d which includes a three-pronged strategy.<\/p>\n

1. Collect key demographic characteristics<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, provincial governments and public health organizations should begin\u00a0routine collection of key demographic characteristics, including ethnicity and race, to identify hotspots \u2014 communities that have a higher caseload \u2014 of preventable infectious diseases. These data are essential for guiding evidence-based decision-making and improving public health responses.<\/p>\n

At the federal level, the\u00a0Disaggregated Data Action Plan (DDAP)\u00a0aims to improve data collection from diverse populations and enable intersectional assessments considering sex\/gender, ethnicity and race, and socioeconomic status. Collaboration between Statistics Canada, provincial and territorial governments is crucial to address data gaps, uncover health inequity, and inform policy and research priorities.<\/p>\n

The federal government set an example with DDAP, and during the pandemic, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) worked closely with provincial and territorial colleagues, academics and research funders. During the COVID-19 pandemic PHAC strengthened its connection with communities, including facilitating by regular meetings with faith-based leaders, which exemplified the importance of ongoing community alliances.<\/p>\n

Provincial and municipal data collection is necessary because public health responses are administered provincially. Localized data helps to address specific community needs. This was seen in Toronto\u2019s neighbourhood-specific studies during the pandemic, which informed the deployment of\u00a0mobile vaccine clinics.<\/p>\n

In addition to quantitative data, qualitative data from the pandemic provides valuable lessons for public health officials. It\u2019s crucial to highlight the experiences of essential workers who, lacking sick pay or worksite testing, continued to work even when symptomatic.<\/p>\n

Another example is the neglect of higher-risk communities in prioritizing testing centres and early vaccine roll-out. This type of qualitative data helps paint accurate pictures of how inequities shaped transmission of the virus, to combat stereotypes and misinformation in public discussion about viral transmission, and helps ensure that the narrative does not falsely suggest\u00a0these communities disregarded\u00a0public health advice and continued to gather.<\/p>\n

2. Community engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n

Second, community engagement and trust-building with marginalized groups is essential and should precede data collection. These can be identified in each region using census-level information, which includes information on type of housing, socioeconomic factors, age, and immigration and racialized status.\u00a0During the COVID-19 pandemic, ethnic-specific research provided valuable insights into vaccine hesitancy and helped counter stigmatization narratives.<\/p>\n

However, delays in\u00a0engaging ethnically diverse communities\u00a0in research were common, often due to the lengthy process of securing funding and ethics board approvals.<\/p>\n

Vaccine hesitancy in marginalized communities was influenced by several factors: mistrust of the rapid vaccine development process, historical experiences of racism, and concerns about long-term side effects.<\/p>\n

Health service providers, including public health officials, must foster ongoing dialogue with these communities about matters of population health \u2014 including healthy active living, healthy babies and mothers, and routine childhood vaccination. Building relationships with on-the-ground grassroots organizations, settlement agencies and faith-based groups plays a vital role in these conversations, helping to\u00a0dispel misinformation and building trust.<\/p>\n

3. Tailored communication<\/strong><\/p>\n

The third requirement is effective communication of culturally tailored information delivered in a language concordant with a community\u2019s needs. In the pandemic, physicians and public health officials\u2019 communication through mainstream media were consistently included as\u00a0trusted sources of information\u00a0among specific ethnic and race groups.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, providing information regarding COVID-19 testing and vaccination availability in multiple languages, and delivery of services by people who looked like them was crucial in\u00a0research studies\u00a0of Black,\u00a0South Asian,\u00a0racialized and Indigenous\u00a0communities. Linguistic and cultural matching between health-care workers, researchers and community members strengthens trust, while poorly translated health messaging begins to erode it.<\/p>\n

The lessons learned from COVID-19 should prompt all levels of government to enhance co-ordination to deliver public health and respond efficiently and effectively for future outbreaks. Pandemic preparedness requires continuous community engagement and trust-building, which are prerequisites for effective data collection and public health response strategies.<\/p>\n

Lessons from COVID-19<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the\u00a0recent measles outbreak\u00a0in southwestern Ontario reiterated the urgent need for rapid information sharing and dialogue with affected communities. The lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic should inform public health officials at all levels of government to work together in order to act swiftly and decisively in similar scenarios.<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that a one-size-fits-all approach is inadequate for addressing health inequities. A targeted, community-informed strategy is essential to improve public health responses to ensure equity for all Canadians. Moving forward, we must prioritize the collection and use of disaggregated data, build strong community partnerships, and ensure our public health systems are prepared to meet the needs of our entire population.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sonia Anand, Associate Vice-President of Global Health at McMaster University; Sujane Kandasamy, Postdoctoral Fellow at Brock University; and Upton Allen, Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto, wrote a piece recently published in The Conversation about health equity and the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[5512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94811,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94808\/revisions\/94811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}