Canada has been slow to collect the robust race-based maternal–newborn data that could allow study of racial inequity in maternal morbidity and mortality at the population level.
KEY POINTS
Canada spends less of its total health budget on primary care than the average among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries (5.3% v. 8.1%).
Canada can learn lessons to inform policy on primary care from OECD countries like the United Kingdom, Norway, Netherlands and Finland where more than 95% of the population has a regular primary care clinician or place of care.
Canada’s health care systems do not routinely collect self-reported race and Indigenous identity data and often lack a standardized and consistent approach to data collection that would permit comparisons between organizations or jurisdictions.
An Afrocentric approach to Black health promotes culturally meaningful health care grounded in the values, worldviews, lived experiences and histories of Black people of African descent.
Afrocentric community health care can disrupt systemic anti-Black racism and related health inequities.
Black people in Canada are at high risk of SARS-CoV-2 infections, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths, yet may be more hesitant to receive the vaccine than other Canadians.
Vaccine hesitancy in Black communities is not merely because of misinformation or gaps in health literacy; it is linked to medical distrust and structural racism.