The overall objective of this new field will be to provide graduate students with a culturally relevant program to fully understand Black public health issues in preparation for public health practice with Black communities. Black communities consist of diverse genders, gender identities, ages, sexual orientations, religious and spiritual backgrounds, abilities/disabilities, classes, immigration and migration processes, among other factors. Black identity is complex, made of diverse ways of identifying, such as Black, African, and African-Canadian, to name a few. Hence, African/Black is used to holistically include the diversity of representation amongst Black community members. Learn more about this new U of T program.
This course will provide students with an in-depth overview of anti-Black racism and colonialism and their impact on the health of African/Black populations from an intersectional perspective. This overview will examine the linkages between the construction of race, and the realities of anti-Black racism from the transatlantic slave trade to historical and contemporary policies and practices that have negatively impacted the health of African descendants and their communities within Canada and in transnational contexts. The course will be grounded in an intersectional framework that will examine anti-Black racism as intrinsically linked to other social determinants of health, including social exclusion based on categories such as gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identities, disabilities, as well as spiritualities/religious affiliations.
This course will provide students with an overview of areas of significant health violence (inequities) for Black populations in Canada and transnationally. The role of racism and other determinants of health will be examined in relation to these inequities in connection to chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, cancer, among others), sexual and reproductive health, and other relevant health indicators across the lifespan.
This course will provide students with critical understandings in relation to the main theories and methods utilized to conduct health research and their applicability/appropriateness for research with African/Black populations and communities. Additionally, this course will examine innovative de-colonizing practices in Black health research within Canada and transnationally.
This course will explore the historically-rooted anti-Black racism that is negatively influencing the policing of Black and racialized individuals and communities in Ontario. The class will examine the crises of public trust, confidence, meaning and credibility in Black and racialized communities with respect to policing, and to a lesser extent, provincial and public health authorities for whom responses are found wanting. The lack of timely and well planned provincial and public health responses to ongoing patterns of excess Black deaths due to homicide victimization, disproportionate police killings of Black people, years of life lost due to racialized detention and incarceration as well as mental health consequences of racial profiling, will also be considered from both a policy lens and a critical race theory perspectives
This course will examine the mental health and well being challenges of Black Canadians. Longstanding issues of concern as well as new pandemic related issues will be examined. Participants will consider cultural strengths and protective factors as well risk factors associated with social determinants of health (SDH) and systemic racism. Intersections of racial and culturally rooted stigma and its impact on help seeking behaviours will be analyzed. Mental health treatment needs, and available options, will be examined along with the psychological and cultural resources essential for community based recovery. Pathways from public stereotypes, microaggressions to diminished self-concept and self-stigmatization will be considered. Mental health is viewed as an essential resource for effective social functioning and health care a human right. Both are effectively undermined by systemic racism as well as racialized social determinants of health. The meaning of mental health and well being and mental health status of segments of the Black population will be explored in sessions one to four. Sessions five to seven will examine the patterns of addictive and mood disorders, psychosis and dementia that impact Black communities. Session eight will explore homicide and violence as Black mental health issues. Session nine will explore prevention education, harms reduction and mental health promotion, as well as public policies, required to reduce the mental health burdens on Black communities.
The primary goal of this course is to understand mechanisms of racism and health and specifically, how racial health inequities are produced across deep–rooted macro level forces (e.g., social–institutional mechanisms), which shape the experiences of racialized minorities. This course will provide students with the opportunity in an inclusive space to critically think about how racial disparities are created through systemic racism. We will discuss societal advantages and disadvantages based on intersectional identities (e.g., race/ethnicity, immigration status, gender) and how these processes are reproduced through the interactions across multiple levels (e.g., individual, family, community, institutional).
We will examine key dimensions which impact the health of communities of color. This course will frame our understanding through key historical processes and theoretical frameworks (e.g., critical race theories, theory of fundamental causes), as well as consider methods, interventions, and future directions to address racial health disparities for public health researchers and practitioners. Key topics in our course include understanding the public health discourse on race and racism, and how these dynamics intersect with systems that may indirectly and directly impact health (e.g., criminal justice system/ policing, immigration detention, education). The focus of this course draws upon both US and Canadian contemporary contexts. This course requires students’ active participation, engagement, and discussion in grappling with the material.
Intersectionality researchers emphasize the need to consider complex interactions between structures of power and oppression and interconnected aspects of individual and group identity and social location. In this course, students will be introduced to the historical and theoretical underpinnings of intersectionality scholarship. Key areas of health inequity research informed by intersectionality will be critically discussed. Students will also be exposed to key methods literature and learn about different ways of ‘doing’ intersectionality in public health research and practice.
