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The course “caused me to reflect greatly on the diversity of experiences and the kinds of systemic barriers” Black people in Canada face, Downey told the Star.

Since its launch in March 2024, the Black Health Primer has been taken by over 1,000 medical students and health professionals. Created by the Black Health Education Collective, it includes eight interactive modules that cover topics like Canada’s history with slavery, structural and social determinants of health, and disrupting and dismantling anti-Black racism on individual and systemic levels.

Though there is limited race-based data available in Canada, what is available suggests Black people in Canada face worse health outcomes than white Canadians.

Studies have shown pregnant Black people experience more negative outcomes than their white counterparts, including increased risk of stillbirths and emergency C-sections, said Dr. Onye Nnorom, co-founder of the collective and assistant professor in U of T’s School of Public Health and department of family and community medicine.Ìý

Other recent research from the University of Ottawa found the breast cancer mortality rate for a Black woman in her 40s was 40 per cent higher than it was for white women in the same age group.

Nnorom said poor health outcomes shouldn’t be chalked up to genetics, and that other factors like systemic racism need to be taken into account.

Reflecting on her experience taking the primer, Downey said “it’s important to understand the histories of Black people in our country, and in their words, understand how they have experienced racism and how it affects the way they feel about health-care organizations like mine.”

Taking the Black Health Primer has made her “commitment to making a difference even more resolute,” she said, adding that CAMH is in the process of making it available to more staff.

Downey said CAMH is expanding its mental health and substance-use program for Black youth and their families across Ontario. “We need to do more of that to make sure that CAMH and all that we do and the kinds of programs we offer have more equitable outcomes, and that we continue to build trust with people,” she said.

OmiSoore Dryden, a professor in the faculty of medicine at Dalhousie University and one of the co-founders of the collective, said she and the primer’s co-creators wanted to open the course with Canada’s history with slavery to help participants “better understand the work they need to do to actively disrupt systemic anti-Black racism and to create opportunities for Black people to have better health.”

“If you don’t understand the history, you have no way of understanding why the inequities which are experienced in communities today exist,” added Sume Ndumbe-Eyoh, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the collective’s executive director.

She said participants are often shocked to learn through the primer that the in Canada — located in Nova Scotia — only closed in 1983.Ìý

The primer’s modules focus on how “race science,” the pseudo-scientific belief that racial superiority and discrimination can be justified by biological differences between races, leads to harmful misconceptions and health disparities; how the criminal justice and child welfare systems affect the health and well-being of Black communities; how anti-Black racism is perpetuated through policy; and how it can be dismantled and racial biases unlearned.

The Black Health Primer’s launch in March 2024 was closely followed by the Medical Council of Canada’s release of its first set of .ÌýThe objectives were created in collaboration with the collective and require medical students to study and answer questions about Black health in order to pass the exam that allows them to begin practising once they’ve finished school.

The primer is recognized by the College of Family Physicians of Canada, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and by the U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. It’s offered at different prices for individual practitioners, medical students and residents, for community-based organizations and for institutions, and is newly available in French.

Nnorom said she was grateful the primer has been well received despite feeling like there’s been an increase in societal pushback against equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives.Ìý

When it comes to Black and other racialized communities in Canada, Nnorom believes most health-care workers realize “we need to do better in understanding their journeys and how racism impacts their lives.”