B.E.A.R Initiative: Bridging Gaps in Health Equity

Vision: Achieving health equity for African, Caribbean, Black (ACB) Canadians by addressing systemic barriers across various sectors including health, employment, and justice.

Background: Recognizing the economic and systemic challenges disproportionately impacting Black Canadians, our leadership discussions have pinpointed essential areas for action. This led to the creation of the Black Equity in Alberta Rainforest (B.E.A.R) initiative.

Initiative Overview: The B.E.A.R is a socially innovative project designed to use data and collaborative efforts to mitigate health disparities stemming from anti-Black racism. Partnering with academic institutions and researchers, we aim to align resources across Alberta to close racial health gaps, producing 13 interdisciplinary reports and converting them into multimedia formats for broader accessibility.

Subprojects: The initiative includes several subprojects, each reflecting our holistic approach to combating inequity:

  • Subproject 1: Quantifying and Qualifying Black Health Inequity (I am the principal investigator for this subproject)

  • Subproject 2: Evaluation

  • Subproject 3: Stakeholder Engagement

  • Subproject 4: ArtSpace

  • Subproject 5: Community Development for HIV-related Equity

  • Subproject 6: Journey Mapping Justice

  • Subproject 7: Community Asset Mapping

  • Subproject 8: Prototypes for Black Equity

  • Subproject 9: Knowledge Synthesis, Incubating and Embedding Prototypes in the B.E.A.R

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