Culturally responsive and accessible approaches to priority populations during COVID-19 and beyond

This Request for Proposal is for the Public Health Agency of CanadaThe COVID-19 pandemic has not affected all Canadians equally. Rates of infection and serious disease, as well as the social and economic impacts of our COVID-19 response, have had a disproportionate impact on populations and communities who were already experiencing health and social inequities in Canada.Concurrently, there have been increasing calls for ensuring that data collection with marginalized populations be more culturally responsive and accessible. It is not just a matter of collecting more data, but collecting high-quality data that reflects the needs and perspectives of affected communities, and ensuring the processes of data collection, analysis, reporting, and action on health inequities are in themselves inclusive, equity-promoting, and responsive to communities.To capture the ongoing work and recent lessons learned in culturally-responsive and accessible health equity data collection, and to apply these lessons to the health equity data and evidence work of the Social Determinants of Health Division, the Agency is seeking one or more Consultants with significant experience and expertise in culturally responsive and accessible methods of concept definition, concept measurement, data collection, analysis and reporting of outcomes relevant to health inequities and determinants of health for the following priority populations:Black Canadians People and communities living in povertyThis work falls under the Data Pillar of the federal Safe Restart Agreement (SRA), which aims to help provinces and territories safely restart their economies and make Canada more resilient to possible future surges in cases of COVID-19. The Data Pillar includes funding and support to improve and modernize data management across Canada, to help all orders of government coordinate their efforts to contain the virus.Objectives of the RequirementTo identify and summarize key issues, challenges, and opportunities for the development and implementation of culturally responsive and accessible approaches to defining, measuring, collecting, analysing and reporting on health outcomes and determinants of health among priority populations during COVID-19 and beyond.To identify a selection of case examples and promising practices in culturally responsive and accessible methods across the data collection cycle, while highlighting the key ingredients and mechanisms that supported culturally responsive practice.Background and Specific Scope of the RequirementFor Black Canadians[1], legacies of historical and present-day anti-Black racism underlies a broad range of socioeconomic inequities driving their disproportionate risk of, hospitalization for and mortality from COVID-19. Black Canadians tend to be employed in low-paying, front-line jobs determined as essential services during the pandemic, and a high number of Black Canadians face heightened risk to exposure related to their reliance on public transit. From mental health and financial security, to access to health services and supports, Black Canadians are largely disadvantaged in this context and beyond.People and communities living in conditions of poverty[2] have been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic and its negative consequences. Public Health Ontario has reported that neighbourhoods experiencing the highest levels of material deprivation are experiencing disproportionately higher rates of COVID-19 and related hospitalizations and deaths. Poverty is a multidimensional concept, and can be linked to COVID-19 risk through multiple pathways, including higher rates of chronic health conditions, overcrowded or unstable housing, overrepresentation in front-line occupations, and inadequate access to health and social services, and other material and social resources needed to promote good health.Although there is growing evidence of these inequities, the pandemic has underscored longstanding gaps in population data and evidence on health and its determinants for marginalized populations. These gaps have limited the possibilities for robust, equity-promoting program and policy action across all levels of government. Persistent gaps in data and evidence continue to pose a challenge to ongoing work to reduce health and social inequities in Canada during the pandemic and beyond. Worsening conditions and widening inequities have prompted community leaders and advocates to increase pressure on health system actors and governments to address these gaps. This in turn has helped to fuel rapid, but often uncoordinated and inconsistent data collection across multiple institutions.The deliverables described below will support the work of the Social Determinants of Health Division (SDHD) to measure, monitor, and report on health inequalities among priority populations in the context of COVID-19 and beyond. Current or planned work in this area includes: secondary data analysis and reporting on health outcomes and determinants of health captured in national and regional datasets through the Health Inequalities Reporting Initiative and the Mental Health of Black Canadians Initiative; research and evaluation of PHAC-funded health-equity promoting interventions; and collaborative work with other government departments and national, provincial and territorial organizations to improve the health equity data infrastructure. These activities would be strengthened by an improved understanding of key issues, challenges, opportunities, and promising practices in the area of culturally responsive and accessible data collection on health outcomes and determinants of health among priority populations.To more directly support PHAC’s work in health equity measuring, monitoring, and reporting the deliverables will focus on key issues relevant to nationally or regionally representative data collection (e.g. national surveys or large-scale research). However, issues and approaches from other knowledge creation activities (e.g. qualitative research, community-based research, program evaluations) can be included when they have relevance for population-level data collection (e.g. approaches to defining health concepts in a culturally adapted way; culturally responsive data collection methods; community-engaged data analysis and reporting).