Grant: Project Grant

Racially biased behaviours and overt racism pose barriers to equitable access to health care in Canada. But to date, efforts to address anti-Indigenous racism in health care research and training have framed it as a phenomenon rooted in causes external to health care such as the Indian Residential School system, the Indian Act, and the Sixties Scoop. The goal of "Health and History" is to reduce human and financial costs of systemic racism in health care by mobilizing knowledge informed by First Nations, Inuit and Métis (FNIM) experiences of hospitalization in Manitoba (MB) to help transform racism-informed behaviours, leading to better access and better health care. There are 3 objectives: #1. To amplify historical FNIM voices around discriminatory experiences of health care through archival research and then mobilize this knowledge to historians, health researchers and educators, Indigenous communities and organizations, and beyond; #2. To support healing and wellness initiatives of FNIM organizations and individuals searching for disappeared people and unmarked burials associated with health care in MB; and #3. To work with Indigenous partners and health care education collaborators to design, create, and evaluate education resources to enhance health care capacity and transform racism-informed behaviours. A considerable range of knowledge translation activities are built into this project, reaching Canadian health researchers, historians, health authorities, health professional educators and students, FNIM governments and organizations, and Indigenous families, communities and Nations. They include: patient simulation activities; a travelling exhibit about health care racism; workshops, research guides and a micro-credential building health historical research capacity; two publications; a speakers bureau; a project website and social media; and two commemorative projects to create cemetery memorials for unmarked FNIM burials associated with health care.