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Week 5 Readings: Racism & Healthy Equity - Coggle Diagram
Week 5 Readings: Racism & Healthy Equity
Racism (not race as sometimes supposed) is a pervasive issue that impacts health equity.
Racism is a system of power, not merely an individual attribute, that is embedded in many areas of society, such as policies, practices, norms and values.
Racism is yet to be taken very seriously within the field of health promotion.
Health promotion is impacted by systems and values of a given society.
In Canada, our Liberal government focuses more on its neoliberal, capitalist pursuits rather than prioritizing social equality, which explains our higher levels of health inequity.
Because "racism" is often downplayed still in North America, its consideration as a factor influencing health is missed or underestimated.
If we truly seek to improve health, we need to be mindful of the impacts of negative factors/systems (e.g., structural racism) and actively challenge them.
Anti-racism is a process by which we develop strategies to tackle racism and racialization.
Anti-racism is open to new ways of thinking and ideas.
Anti-racism involves structural analysis of systems and examines and acknowledges past history of them.
The process of decolonialization within health promotion is essential to increase health equity.
This is collaborative process and power sharing must occur with community members and stakeholders.
As practitioners we must be mindful of our own biases and also recognize that this process may stir up trauma and wounds.
A complete engagement with decolonialization requires reflection, action, and planning.
We cannot expect to improve the health of populations without addressing existing health inequities.
by Beth Clark
Health inequities arise from the types of living and working conditions (which we also call social determinants of health) we are exposed to and again are related to income levels, with the rich getting the better of both leading to better health outcomes.
Seven different HP approaches have been developed from the various interpretations surrounding the social determinants of health.
Income is one of the primary ways to identify health inequities, with the poor undergoing the greater burden of morbidity and mortality.