Afrocentric approaches to disrupting anti-Black racism in health care and promoting Black health in Canada

#KEY POINTS

• 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.

• Founded on the philosophy and practice of ubuntu and on the Nguzo Saba or “Seven Principles,” TAIBU, a nonprofit community health centre in Scarborough, Ontario, applies Afrocentrism to disrupt anti-Black racism in the health care system and provide holistic, culturally appropriate health care to Black communities in the area.

• Black health is determined more broadly than is typically imagined in conventional Western models of the social determinants of health; further dialogue, reflection, intellectual and cultural humility, learning and unlearning are needed to fully realize the potential of an Afrocentric model of care.