Advancing an anti-racist implementation science approach to redress social and mental health inequities

Systemic racism and discrimination drive social and mental health inequities, including intergenerational trauma. People with lived experience of systemic racism and discrimination need to design and lead solutions to redress historical exclusion and bridge the gap between academic research and community needs. This research program fills this need with lived experience leaders co-designing, implementing, and evaluating a community mental health promotion program, and a national health system training program. With a foundation of equitable community-health system-university partnerships, it aims to: 1. adapt, scale, evaluate, and sustain Building Roads Together (BRT), an effective social inclusion and mental health program; 2. advance an anti-racist implementation science approach; 3. build capacity in anti-racist implementation research among academic trainees, early career researchers, and lived experience researchers. This research will: promote social and mental health equity; build anti-racist research capacity; contribute to BC Anti-Racism Act commitments to advance racial equity, and healing for those harmed by systemic racism; and Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy commitment to dismantling systemic racism in health systems.