AS WE COLLECTIVELY WORK to create a more inclusive Canada, academics, community leaders and organizations are increasingly partnering to leverage data in ways that advocate for targeted support to mitigate the challenges that have arisen during the global pandemic. Without these efforts, Canada risks having an uneven recovery that puts racialized Canadians in a worse situation than before the pandemic.
Seeking to contribute to this effort, the Canadian Arab Institute (CAI) recently collaborated with Brock University on a research study examining gaps in knowledge about the lived experiences of racialized communities. Together with myself and Brock President Dr. Gervan Fearon, the CAI oversaw a study designed to cultivate dialogue across several groups of racialized Canadians.
Our study evaluated the impact of COVID-19 on Arab, Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, South Asian and other racialized groups across Canada. The aim was to identify and articulate the challenges they have faced and continue to face, with the mission of informing government policy, program development and civil society interventions. In this article I will summarize our findings.
Our Research
We set out to examine the impact of COVID-19 on racialized groups across Canada along five dimensions of well-being: physical, financial, emotional, spiritual and social. Taken together, these elements form ‘the social determinants of health’. Our study consisted of two elements: a structured questionnaire and individual interviews. A total of 215 participants completed the survey and 66 were interviewed. Field work was completed over the four-month period between September and December of 2020. Data were collected on a wide range of characteristics that have been found to be important drivers of pandemic impact. These factors include:
Arabs represented 34 per cent of our sample, followed by 17 per cent
