Considerations for collecting data on race and Indigenous identity during health card renewal across Canadian jurisdictions

In Canada, Indigenous and racialized patients have been shown to have worse access to health care, receive poorer care and have worse outcomes than White people. A recent conceptmapping study found that Indigenous and racialized patients often feel belittled by clinicians and report that their symptoms are not taken seriously. In health care, racism faced by Indigenous and Black patients has been extensively documented in key reports and postmortem investigations. Although race is a social construct that uses perceived physical differences to create and maintain power differentials and the existence of discrete racial groups has not been shown to have any biological basis, perceived race influences how people are treated by individuals and institutions. Having data on race available for analysis can facilitate the measurement of racial inequities in health care, help to hold organizations and governments accountable for addressing these inequities and monitor progress. We discuss health card renewal as a potentially efficient and effective way of collecting race and Indigenous identity data in Canada and highlight the key preconditions to the collection, governance and use of such data that would facilitate positive action on racism in health care in Canada.