The challenges of identifying and eliminating racial disparities regarding the exposure, transmission, prevention, and treatment of communicable diseases within the healthcare system have been a mounting concern since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) populations in Canada represent a fast-expanding and underprivileged community, which have been previously found to have higher susceptibility to communicable diseases and lower sensitivity to intervention measures. Currently, there is insufficient evidence to adequately identify racial patterns in the prevalence and healthcare utilization among the ACB population within the context of the ongoing pandemic. Our proposed study will explore the association between the social determinants of health (SDH) and COVID-19 health outcomes in ACB populations in high-income countries (UK, US, Australia). We will explore the literary evidence through a systematic review (SR) of COVID-19 literature covering the period between December 2019 and October 2020. The objectives include investigating the effect of SDH on the ACB populations’ risk to COVID-19 health outcomes, including COVID-19 infection incidence, severity of disease, hospitalization, mortality and barriers to the treatment and management of COVID-19 for Black people in Canada. In addition, this project aims to investigate the effect of COVID-19 on ACB communities in Ontario by examining the challenges that front-line healthcare workers and administrators have during this pandemic as it pertains to service provisions to ACB communities. A systematic review of original and review studies will be conducted based on the publications on eleven databases (MEDLINE, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, CINAHL, NHS EDD, Global Health, PsychInfo, PubMed, Scopus, Proquest, and Taylor and Francis Online Journals) published between December 2019 to October 2020. Primary outcomes will include the rate of COVID-19 infection. The systematic review will include a meta-analysis of available quantitative data, as well as a narrative synthesis of qualitative studies. This systematic review will be among the first to report racial disparities in COVID-19 infection among the ACB population in Canada. Through synthesizing population data regarding the risk factors on various levels, the findings from this systematic review will provide recommendations for future research and evidence for clinical practitioners and social workers. Overall, a better understanding of the nature and consequences of racial disparities during the pandemic will provide policy directions for effective interventions and resilience-building in the post-pandemic era.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has led us to this current public health and political moment, bringing widespread attention to social and health inequalities and interconnecting racial discrimination faced by Black communities and other communities of colour. The pandemic has also precipitated a transition of the qualitative methodology classroom from physical to virtual spaces. At this juncture, an opportunity has emerged to amplify critical pedagogies challenging White, Eurocentric, hetero- and cis-normative epistemologies and introduce their practice into the ever-evolving classroom. Rooted within a genealogy of Black women’s political and intellectual activism, Black feminist pedagogy captures their unique intersectional experiences and presents a methodology for teachers and learners alike to promote equity in the classroom and our society. In this presentation, we discuss the ways in which Black feminist pedagogy can support reflection on the inherent relations of power shaping the pedagogical practices and knowledge production of/in the classroom. We hold that Black feminist pedagogy is not simply concerned with the instruction of, for, and about Black women. It additionally puts forth learning strategies informed by Black women’s historical experiences of race, gender, and class discrimination that can support the inclusion of diverse epistemological positionings and meaningfully represent the social and health inequities of marginalized communities. We affirm that a ‘standpoint epistemology' is foundational to Black feminist pedagogy and that those who experience marginalization are best positioned to make claims about its meanings and impacts. The presenters draw from their epistemological standpoint as Black women, graduate and postdoctoral scholars, and Black feminist thinkers. We center our own experiential knowledge as learners and teachers to reflect on the value of Black feminist pedagogy. A major learning from our experiences in this current moment has compelled us to advocate for integrating a critical reflexivity process. This process is undertaken by teachers and learners to assess how knowledge is being produced, legitimized and/or erased as a counter to the social and institutional power and authority constituting the classroom. We also discuss considerations for teaching theoretical and methodological approaches to intersecting oppressions as elemental to Black women’s experience and a cornerstone of Black feminist pedagogy. An intersectional approach supports us to take stock of the interlocking stigmas shaping health inequalities, ontologically and epistemologically (re)position the multiply marginalized communities they impact, and take up theories, methods, and practices that better align with our experiences. Intersectionality will be used to exemplify tensions as a ‘travelling theory’ and its strengths when rooted in a Black feminist pedagogy. At a time where Black feminist thought is at the forefront of public consciousness, we emphasize the dangers of taking up this tradition through white and patriarchal logics and pedagogies. As we rework the notion and formations of ‘the classroom’ in this current moment, it is important to not only recognize it as a place of intellectual advancement but also as a historical site of colonial, racial, and epistemic violence. Black feminist pedagogy holds that the experiential knowledge of racialized communities uniquely positions them for the teaching of ontologies and epistemologies characterizing their social realties and the methodological approaches employed to interpret them. To this end, redressing academic violence unequivocally requires the meaningful engagement and inclusion of Black (feminist) scholars in academic institutions and actively creating an environment that supports this pedagogical practice as an ethic and praxis towards decolonizing the classroom and qualitative health research more broadly. In this presentation, we aim to represent Black feminist thinking as a pedagogical tool to emphasize the intellectual, experiential, and cultural contributions of Black scholars to knowledge production and to help practitioners meaningfully approach teaching-learning and conducting qualitative health research in a (post-)COVID-19 reality.

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