Community News
Researcher highlights importance of defining Black population in health research in Canada
BY PAUL JUNOR
Dr Jude Mary Cena’s primary focus has been on the mental health of Black communities, and helping mental health professionals by providing them culturally appropriate training. As a health researcher with a focus on Black people in Canada, Dr Cena is concerned about the vagueness and imprecision of how Black people are defined in the scientific literature.
In order to understand this even more, he wrote an article titled, “Who is Black? The urgency of accurately defining the Black population when conducting health research in Canada.” This article was published in the July 18th, 2022, issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) and can be accessed at the CMAJ’s website: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.220274. Dr. Cena’s thesis is that there is a need for greater accuracy and precision when defining the Black population in Canada, because this has implications for Black health research in terms of its impact on: public policies, health care programs, and strategies and actions not addressed appropriately.
Dr Cena lists many of the terms which are used to define who is Black. They include: Black individuals, people or communities, Black Canadians, African-Canadians, Africans, Caribbean, Black Africans, African-Caribbean or African and Caribbean communities, African Caribbean and Black or African Nova Scotians, individuals of people with African Descent and Black ethnicity.
He provides a list of references where these designations are used within the academic literature in diverse: social, medical and science fields. Dr Cena states, “The use of these varying expressions when describing Black people in health research hinders the comparability and usefulness of studies’ findings.” He notes further that “Researchers should aim to use accurate and discriminative terminology consistently to maximize the usefulness of Black health research in Canada.”
Dr. Cena considers the term “African-Canadian,” which is reflective of the term “African Americans” employed in America as “problematic.” He believes that “It may exclude Black people of Caribbean and other origins and may include people who do not identify as Black such as people from Northern or South Africa (e.g., Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt).” With respect to the term “African-Canadian,” he believes that, “It semantically excludes Black people: living, working or studying in Canada who are not citizens.” He notes that while there is increased usage of African, Caribbean and Black communities, “It may not be specific enough and may include people from Africa who do not identify as Black, as well as it may include people from the Caribbean who identify as Latino.”
Furthermore, the usage of “African, Caribbean, or Black” is problematic, because people may be African and White or Arab, or Caribbean and Latino.” Also, asking individuals whether they are of continental or subcontinental origin (e.g., Sub-Saharan African) is unclear because it could include varied ethnicities who have diverse lived realities in Canada.
There is further confusion because studies rarely differentiate between Black peoples whose ancestors have resided in Canada for centuries, and those who are recent immigrants. Dr.Cenay notes that in the 2016 Canadian census, the U.S. was listed as the 10th most frequent country of origin for Black people in Canada.
Dr.Cenay believes that using definitions like: Black, African, Caribbean and Canadian individuals, people or communities is cumbersome and does not consider Black people of other origins ( e.g., Latin America). On the other hand, Black individuals, peoples or communities, although criticized as being too simplistic, are in fact clear, unambiguous and accurate.
It can be beneficial as it is in sync with data from the Canadian Community Health Survey. Dr Cenay notes that it will not help produce studies that can properly inform better: public health, prevention, health promotion and population health intervention programs for Black people in Canada because the term does not consider the diversity of Black communities in Canada, and is not sufficiently discriminant.