The province had granted some health units permission to begin collecting race-based data voluntarily and some have begun doing so, but critics argue it’s not enough
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Christine Elliott said the province was working with public health and privacy experts to collect such data but noted it would require changing regulations.“We recognize that the collection of race-based data is important in order to guide our decision-making on how to protect vulnerable groups who may be at a higher risk for COVID-19,” Hayley Chazan said.
OmiSoore Dryden, an associate professor and chairwoman of Black Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University, said the information is needed to properly identify health disparities. Analysis of such data, she said, should be done by anti-racism experts – those health researchers, epidemiologies and statisticians who have also been trained in critical race theory and decolonization.
“Public health units have different capacities and population densities that impact their abilities to collect, analyze and report on race-based data,” said the association’s executive director, Loretta Ryan, on Tuesday. “Their challenges in doing so should not be seen as a lack of interest with regards to this matter.”
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