Embedding anti-racism in Schools of Public Health: a pathway to accountability for progress towards equity.

Abstract

The importance of seeing race as a socially constructed idea continues to produce unfair differences between humans and establishes power relations that lead to injustice and exposure to death. Since the racial justice movement in early 2020, therehas been a heightened awarenessof,and increased interest in,addressinghistoric racial disparities across Schools of Public Health (SPH) in Canada. Steps have been taken to recognize systemic racism and increase diversity through structural reforms to advance equity and inclusion; however, addressing racism demands collectively uprooting racist institutional designs still inherent in learning, teaching, research, service, and community engagement. This commentary highlights the need for sustained commitment to establishing longitudinal benchmarks for greater racial equity among students, staff, and faculty; revising curricula to include historic and contemporary narratives of colonialism and slavery; and providing community-engaged learning opportunities as instrumental to dismantle systemic drivers of racial health inequities locally and globally. We also advocate for intersectoral collaboration, mutual learning, and sharing of resources across SPH and partner agencies to accomplish a continual collective agenda for racial health equity and inclusion that is intersectional in Canada, while being held accountable to Indigenous and racialized communities.