Growing an Unlearning & Undoing White Supremacy & Indigenous-specific Racism Lab for population and public health in BC

First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples have a right to health. Laws in BC affirm this right. Settler systems have not yet fulfilled our obligations.

The 2020 In Plain Sight report showed that Indigenous-specific racism in health is widespread in BC. This report, and others like it, outline clear instructions for health leaders. How should organisations responsible for population and public health in BC pick up these instructions?

We often hear, “what can we do?” This research aims to answer that question, plus: How can we get ready to do this work in a meaningful way? How can we change how we’ve been working in order to be anti-racist? What tools do we need? Is what we are trying working?

US anti-racism expert, Dr. Camara Jones, has given public health organizations 3 tasks to end the epidemic of racism:

1. Name racism
2. Ask, how is it operating here?
3. Organize and strategize to act

3 provincial organizations – BC Office of the Provincial Health Officer, BC Centre for Disease Control, and Provincial Health Services Authority – will work together, with guidance from Indigenous peoples, to build knowledge of how to change the population and public health system to uphold Indigenous rights and work in an anti-racist way.