Examining Anti-racism Content in Indigenous Health Education

Professor Agnes Grudniewicz, and two Telfer MHA students, Maddie Venables and Amanda Larocque, received a School of Management Indigenous Research Support Grant to develop an anti-racism assessment tool for medical education curricula. While there have been efforts to integrate Indigenous knowledge into medical education and to reduce racism in health care, these efforts have not been systematically evaluated. This study will support the development of an assessment tool to advance the dismantling of anti-Indigenous racism in health care.

The team is working closely with Indigenous communities in all phases of the research. They will use a mixed methods approach that includes a scoping review, survey, and interviews. Surveys will be sent to all 17 Canadian medical schools to identify current practices with respect to Indigenous health teachings and to the delivery of anti-racism curricula. One-on-one interviews with medical faculty will dig deeper into the concepts discovered in the survey.

What will the research contribute?

Part of the motivation for this project stems from historical injustices committed against Indigenous peoples, which continue in many forms to this day. The team will be partnering with the Gesgapegiag Health and Community Services (GHCS) organization, which provides health promotion, prevention, education, as well as clinical and community services, to its members. This tool will be used to support the Chief and Council of Gesgapegiag, who are mandated to support anti-oppressive practices. It will also help ensure that the education curriculum given to future medical students reflects the community-based values of Indigenous peoples.

Agnes Grudniewicz received her Ph.D. in Health Services Research from the Institute of Health Policy, Management & Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She holds a Scientist appointment at the Institut du savoir Montfort and is an affiliate investigator at the Bruyère Research Institute. Dr. Grudniewicz's research is focused on primary and community care and aims to improve health care systems and services for patients with complex health and social needs. Read more about her work.